Pi just a little too high for brave Magee

Raphoe woman left to rue vital points that got away against one-time number one. JOHNNY WATTERSONreports

THERE was a measure of mild rebuke in the voice of Chloe Magee. Yesterday in the bowels of Wembley Stadium, the Donegal badminton player stepped out of the Olympic Arena with a bundle of regrets still tumbling around in her head.

In her voice the tone of discontent suggested she had left something in the hall that could never be redeemed after a three-set defeat to the former world number one Hongyan Pi of France. The rebukes that came with a shake of the head were to herself.

“She played very smart, she’s been around a long time and she knew how to control the shuttle. She knew I would make mistakes if she played a little bit shorter,” said Magee. “I just didn’t control it well enough. I needed to keep her on court but I made easy mistakes that never should have happened.”

It was a disconcerting atmosphere in the three-court arena. With British girl Susan Egelstaff playing simultaneously in the adjacent match, sporadic thunderclaps of cheering from the home crowd in the middle of Magee’s rallies brought a frenzied feel to some of the points.

Pi arrived with her knees and leg a patchwork of bandages and tape, adding value to Irish team-mate Scott Evan’s diagnosis of the French girl that she was “in bits.”

Placed at 21 in the world to Magee’s 44, there was a gulf in the difference of ranking. But Evans was right. This was Pi’s last big venture with a body that had visibly fallen into disrepair.

That possibly added to Magee’s vexed demeanour, knowing Pi was creaking and vulnerable. There was also the amplification of the final disappointment by the sharp descent from the relative high of the first set. There her game, her head, her execution of shots and tactics dovetailed into a package that had Pi pulling painful faces at her coach, who sat in a chair a short distance from the back of the court.

From the pinnacle of a 21-16 first set and the promise of a career-defining win, the distance Magee fell over the next 40 minutes was greater than if Pi had whipped her in straight sets.

Slipping up 18-21 and 14-21 in the next two still hadn’t left the head of the 23-year-old from Raphoe when she strolled through the media zone. There she plucked fault by fault from her thoughts and dishearteningly strung them together.

“In the first game I felt that I definitely played very well and the second game up to 11 I still felt I was playing very well,” she said. “I ended up hitting two shots out the back and it was just not thinking about the drift, and that’s just stupid. You can’t afford to do that if you want to beat the big players. That’s just the way it is.”

“She’s struggling physically a little bit and she has fantastic shots. I had to keep getting them back and keep getting them back. I knew that she was going to make mistakes when she’s tired. But she’s not going to make mistakes when she’s fresh. So I tried to stick to the attack as much as I could. I think I did it to a certain extent. But just not at the big times and not well enough at the big times.”

Magee took an important first set lead after a deep smash put her 11-10 up. Pi also misjudged the drift of the shuttle several times to hand Magee some cheap points, including the set winner, which she helplessly watched it as it fell at her feet inside the line for 21-16.

For much of the rest of the match, Magee appeared to be chasing and ended up several times stretching into the splits as she slipped on perspiration lunging to the net to retrieve perfectly weighted drop shots.

The final point of the second set was a feverish plunge on her back hand side, her heel skating away and the shuttle dropping in for Pi to level 1-1.

Although Magee went 2-1 ahead in the third stanza, she lost five in a row to fall 6-2 down. She then took the lead again for 8-7 but again she handed back the advantage, Pi’s variety and execution improving as Magee fell into a more reactive match.

No doubt she glimpsed the next phase of the tournament and she had reason to. But a too long return floated out and with it went Magee and her 2012 Olympic hopes.