The first one I ever did was Tashkent Challenger. If you have followed the recent posts, you know I highly praised the organizer as well as the media team for their professionalism and passion in the tournament.
With the help from Esther, I thought why not blog about the next Challenger event in Seoul.
We quickly realized that Seoul Challenger is no Tashkent Challenger.
Firstly, the media team in Seoul doesn't provide materials (press conference, press releases, etc) in English.Never mind the language barrier.
The saddest thing happened when the organizer practice favoritism and 'ill-treated' the players.
The following are some of the info that I've gathered from Rendy Lu's forum including posting from Rendy's brother, Thomas.
- Organizer did not change the venue from outdoor to indoor despite the windy condition and playing under the temperature of 5 degrees! Even Danai Udomchoke complained about the cold temperature in his website.
- When home boy, Lee Hyung Teik was playing against Rendy in the semifinal, the organizer decided to change the venue to indoor during the last minute.
- The organizer did not provide an umbrella for Rendy to walk from the players lounge to the indoor stadium to continue the semifinal match.
- When inside, things were chaotic as all seats were filled up with supporters and according to Thomas the organizer didn't allocate seats for player and team.
- After a few unfair judgments, during the 1st game of 2nd set, Rendy called for the trainer to check on his injured toe (a result from playing 2 matches in one day under cold weather and until night). Rendy who felt he was being treated unfairly decided to retire from the semifinal match and handed Mr Lee the walkover.
Now that they are playing in Busan, South Korea, we hope the organizer here would not repeat the same mistakes as what Seoul did last week.
May the best man wins.
