Indonesia's badminton star Taufik Hidayat boycotted a match against the defending champion Chinese Lin Dan because of a judging dispute in the Hong Kong Open semifinals here on Thursday.
Taufik, who claimed both titles from the Athens Olympics in 2004 and the world championship in 2005, announced to quit the match after a dissension with the match's umpires.
The dispute came at the beginning of the first set as a side referee changed her judgment from out to in on a dispute point which makes Lin take a 4-1 lead.
Taufik assailed the referee and then went to the umpire asking for a scoring change. But the umpire refused it, which enraged the bad-tempered Indonesian who was once to boycott another match due to a same reason during the men's team final against the hosts South Korea in the Busan Asian Games in 2002.
Senior judging official Lui Ming Kai, who tried to mediate Taufik and the umpire but failed, had to announced the end of the match.
"The umpire and the side referee made the same judgment on the point but the player could not accept it. He insisted on boycotting the match, and what I can do is only to accept it and to report it to the International Badminton Federation," said Lui.
While Taufik refused to commented on the match, his rival Lin said it's an unexpected result.
"It's out of my expectation," said Lin. "I hoped to have a good match as there are not many chances to play against Taufik.
"I think respecting the umpire's decision should be a common sense for players. If I had been in the same situation, I would have chosen to go on playing.
"Actually it's just the beginning of the match, it's not a match point. No need to quit it just because of such a little dispute.
"Like players, referee also need time to warm up," said Lin.
Lin had won four of previous eight clash with Taufik and their ninth clash came into the spot light in the fourth day of the Hong Kong Open which is the last warm-up tournament ahead of the next month's world championships.
Source: Xinhua
(source: People's Daily)
