IT IS ROUGH luck to be drawn against the world number one in the opening round of a major championship.
When it happens three years in a row, well, that’s just “bullshit” to borrow a typically colourful turn of phrase from Scott Evans.
On Monday Ireland’s top player takes centre stage for another headline billing at the World Badminton Championships in Guangzhou, China.
Tens of millions tuned in last summer when Evans lost against defending gold medallist Lin Dan at the London Olympics, a repeat of their meeting at the 2011 Worlds.
This time he faces Lee Chong Wei, the Malaysian superstar who was perpetually in Lin’s shadow at the top of the rankings but has since toppled him and is now gunning for his first-ever world title.
“Things happen in threes so I hope now that this is the end of this bullshit,” Evans told TheScore.ie before he flew out on Friday night.
“Of course it’s good to play these guys. I’ve been working a lot on my game so I can use the things that I’ve been working on and see how I’m getting on.
“It’s always a huge challenge in the first game. I’d rather play a couple of games and get some good results before I play these guys. That’s the way it is, that’s the draw and I can’t change it.”
Evans and Lee have met once already this season, at the Indian Open in April where Lee ground out an evenly-matched first set before blowing his opponent away.
“I was quite close in the first and then he just destroyed me in the second set,” Evans remembers. “He is just that good that he can do that to anyone.
There’s maybe six or eight players in the world that he couldn’t do that to and then the rest he could just absolutely destroy if he wanted to.
“To be honest I felt terrible in India. I had been doing a lot of running so I felt terrible in my legs, I actually felt like I was all over the place on court in that match. I’m hoping that it goes better but it’s going to be a huge challenge.”
Lee Chong Wei, left, and Lin Dan on the podium at the Olympics in London last summer (Saurabh Das/AP/Press Association Images)
Since winning his second Olympic gold medal in London, Lin has taken an extended break from the game and tumbled down the world rankings to 100th. He needed a wild-card just to qualify for the Worlds but, as the gods of the draw conspired against Evans, they smiled on Lee and kept him in the opposite half of the draw to his arch-nemesis.
Now 30, there is a sense that Lee will never have a better chance to win a world title and Evans is hoping that the weight of expectation might play into his hands.
He’s one of those players that does start off a little bit slow. I’d say he’ll be extra nervous because he knows that this is his chance to win a Worlds.Lin Dan hasn’t played a tournament since the Olympics and he’s just come out with an interview two days ago saying he’s not thinking at all about any kind of good results, all he wants to do is play some good matches.
To stand any chance he will need to reproduce the form which saw him capture the first major titles of his career this winter, when he followed up his win at the Irish Open with another at the Cyprus International.
That streak coincided with a move to train in England under Kenneth Jonassen, the head of Team GB’s badminton squad. With Jonassen due to leave his position and return to Denmark after the Worlds, their arrangement came to an end last Friday but Evans says he’s already working on his next “exciting” new phase.
For now though he’s focused on Lee. This week he decided to fight fire with fire and called in a former world number one of his own, Danish star Peter Gade, to help him with his final preparations.
“I’ve been watching videos of him and Peter gave me some tips on where I should be and where I should focus on in my game.
“I have been watching some videos so I’ll just go in and give it everything I can.”
