Late rally fails to save McGinn

A brave challenge yielded only disappointment for the Howth woman Sonya McGinn in Sydney yesterday when she went out on an 11-3, 11-6 scoreline to Mia Audina Tjiptawan in the women's singles badminton championship.

McGinn, the first Irish badminton player to compete at Olympic level, walked off court beaten but unbowed after giving the silver medallist at the Atlanta Games some uncomfortable moments in the second set.

Sadly, she conceded the opening set almost by default with a series of unforced errors. "I made mistakes at the start - and it cost me," she said. "I went into the game with the attitude that I had nothing to lose and went for winners too often. In retrospect, I should have been more patient.

"I started to relax a little bit more in the second set and it showed in the scoring. I gave her a bit of a battle then but unfortunately, I wasn't able to see it through.

"It's always hard going into your first game but it was doubly so today against an opponent of such class. Ideally, I'd love to have played somebody I'd previously met before taking on the fifth ranked player in the world, but that's the luck of the draw." Yet, it was a great occasion with some 60 Irish supporters creating a carnival atmosphere which possibly belonged more to a football ground than to the normally sedate badminton court.

Tjiptawan, a naturalised Dutch woman who was born in Indonesia, came on court with a heavily bandaged left knee but if it bothered her, it certainly didn't show as she raced into an early 4-0 lead.

McGinn's first point was angled perfectly into the corner but alas, it one of the few highpoints in a set in which the winner seldom had to work hard. Tjiptawan again made the better start in the second set to win the first four points but then, to the delight of the crowd, McGinn found her touch. Forcing her opponent into the corners, she managed to close to within a point at 6-5.

That conjured hopes of a famous Irish win but sensing the threat, the Dutch player lifted her game to drop only one more point. It had been a commendable struggle against the odds by McGinn, and afterwards her coach Mary Dinan said it had set down the bench mark for the emerging players in the country.

"I think Sonya was a little nervous at the start but she got into the game into the second set and overall, she could take a lot of credit for her performance." she said.

"The disappointing thing was that she didn't make her opponent work for her points in the early stages. The encouraging aspect was the way she succeeded in manoeuvring her around the court in the second set when she really played as we know she can."

McGinn said she will make a decision on her future on her return to Dublin. "I'd like to have progressed further in the competition but my primary ambition was to qualify for the Games. Anything more than that would have been a bonus and while I was very disappointed leaving the court, I like to think that I will learn a lot from the experience."