Players upset with service judge in All England badminton

BIRMINGHAM, England, March 8 (Xinhua) -- Some players are upset with allegedly unfair service judgments in the All England Badminton Open and the Chinese team are filing a complaint Saturday.

Chinese mixed pair Xie Zhongbo and Zhang Yawen have accused the English service judge Chris Taylor of unfairly giving them "about eight service faults" on Wednesday, which they claimed eventually led to their 16-21, 21-18, 21-17 loss to Indonesia's Flandy Limpele and Russia's Anastasia Russkikh in the first round.

But Russkikh denied that the referee favored them and said that it was not something "special".

"The referee also ruled against us... a couple of times. So I don't think he's helping us," she said.

A source close to the Chinese team said that Taylor inflicted five faults on the Chinese pair versus one on Limpele and Russkikh during their three-game encounter.

In badminton, a service fault means a point automatically being awarded to opponents.

Russkikh, however, also blamed another service judge in their match against English Robert Blair and Scottish Imogen Bankier on Thursday although they won 26-24, 21-19.

"He faulted our serves four to five times," she said, "that didn't bother me. He had a problem with me before. But it's his problem, not mine. I served well."

It was also claimed that some other Chinese players were treated in a similar way in two other matches in the week-long tournament which will end on Sunday and the Chinese team are filing a complaint.

"We were faulted all in crucial times," Zhang Yawen said of the damage of the judgment, "like when we were level or rallying. That of course affected the result of the game in an unfair way."

"It's not the first time. We experienced the same thing in the 2006 world championships in Spain," Zhang said.

In Spain, Zhang and her partner Xie were reportedly faulted on services for a surprising eleven times in a second-round match which they survived 23-21, 22-20.

Service judgment has been a very controversial topic in badminton sport.

The service rule is that the position of the shuttle at the moment it is struck must be below the level of the lowest rib. But the rib is not seen and the position is actually left up to the judge to determine.