Badminton: Veteran retiring to the warmth

By TERRY MADDAFORD

Freezing halls on winter nights will soon be just a memory for Rhona Robertson.

Her appearance in next week's Auckland international tournament will mark the end of the big time for New Zealand's most experienced player.

Since she joined the Howick Badminton Club as a 9-year-old, Robertson has rarely been away from the sport.

The only breaks have come when she has taken time out for an occasional game of softball in the summer.

"I've been around a while," said 32-year-old Robertson.

"I certainly don't have any regrets but it is time to move on and do other things with my life."

A student at Macleans College at the same time as two other top sportswomen - Barbara Kendall and Kirsten Hellier (nee Smith), who also represented New Zealand at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics - Robertson first played internationally in 1988.

She made her first appearance for New Zealand playing the second doubles in the Uber Cup in Melbourne.

Her last, of 71 international outings, was in Manchester last month, again playing doubles.

While her preference in recent years has been for doubles - usually with Tammy Jenkins - Robertson was ranked 22nd in the world in singles in 1998 and reached a career-high doubles ranking this year of nine.

"Tammy and I were virtually thrown together in 1991 by [then national coach] Chris Bullen," said Robertson.

"We were sent to Europe, and lost every match in the first round. But we stuck together and the following year reached a final of a small tournament.

"Since then we have lost count of how many times we have played together. Things have worked well between us. I'm the one who hits it [the shuttle] over the net, and she is the crafty playmaker.

"With Tammy living in Australia for the past couple of years, I have played with Nicole Gordon and that hasn't worked, mainly because we play the same style of game."

Not surprisingly in a sport regarded as one of the more friendly, Robertson and Jenkins have remained firm friends.

Robertson says that while she regards the Barcelona Olympics as a high point in her career, it was the Commonwealth Games that gave her most success - and her biggest disappointment.

She won singles bronze at the 1994 Victoria Commonwealth Games, doubles bronze with Jenkins in Kuala Lumpur four years later and another bronze, again with Jenkins, at Manchester in the team's event.

The disappointment came in Kuala Lumpur when she, Jenkins, Sheree Jefferson, Rebecca Gordon, Amanda Carter, Nicole Gordon and Li Feng were hot favourites to win at least silver in the teams event, but came up empty-handed.

Robertson, who has been married for two years and employed by Auckland Badminton for the past four years as a fulltime coach, is ready to move on.

She vows she will not play inter-club games, but might consider another tilt at the Wisden Cup.

"I have enjoyed great support from Greg [her husband and partner for 14 years], my parents and plenty of other people."

Next week's tournament at Badminton Hall will be a fitting farewell for a player who has given so much to her sport - much of it in what has been her home away from home for a few decades.

In Jenkins' absence, Robertson will play doubles with Linda Wu. Few would dare bet against her going out in style.