Lin Dan faced Viktor Axelsen in the first round of Singapore Open 2019. The match was played on court no 4, where Kento Momota had previously beaten Sai Praneeth.
Lin Dan had a bad line call when he was up 6-0. The shot looked to be out but the umpire did not overrule the call. This seemed to visibly upset Lin Dan. Viktor capitalised on this and caught up on the points.
When Viktor was up 19-13, Lin Dan was in disagreement with the line call again. Following this Lin Dan cited injury to retire from the match.
Viktor was quoted saying that Lin Dan seemed angry with the line judge, and was not sure if Lin Dan was actually injured or venting out his anger at the line judge. He added it looks bad for the sport.
Officially Lin Dan retired from “left thigh spasm.” But Lin Dan was quoted saying that a match of big caliber should not be played on courts without hawkeye review. A match between big names should be played on the center court, where there is Hawk-Eye.
This makes for a good case for Hawk-Eye to be installed in all the courts.
In badminton terms, a call is made in a split second. The margin of a wrong call is very high.
Maybe it is time the BWF tournament organizers take look at this incident and act on it. For big competitions and big names playing it is only fair that the best judgment be provided.