Absolutely, no doubt about that, seeing how well Saina has been playing of late. A slightly off-colour LXR would have been in serious trouble.
Yes, every time I'm a bit worried about her, I will think of your words of encouragement "Have faith in her". Thanks.
LXR is at least a level above the rest of the field, she will beat everyone even she is at 90%. She would lose only to her teammates she doesn't want to beat them all the time cause they have to train and travel together.
Um, Sun Yu played Ratchanok today, and on what planet is Sindhu comparable to Ratchanok as a player? Sindhu is fifth rate compared to Ratchanok (which explains why the latter has thrashed the former easily every time they've met), so of course Sun Yu will have a much easier time beating Sindhu than she would with Ratchanok.
That's your opinion, not mine. Nehwal is as laboured and lumbering on court as she's ever been, in my opinion; if she got so close to beating Li in the first game, it's only because Li was not at her utmost best as far as I'm concerned.
Head to head does not always count. The ways both played tonight is quite telling that Sun Yu has a mountain to climb next week.
Will agree with you 100% if she learns to consolidate her lead instead of throwing it away unnecessarily by gifting points to her opponent. I was flabbergasted how she could throw away a 10-5 lead to trail her opponent by 11-10 in the first set.
From Chen Jin's body language, I can see that he is very pleased of and satisfied with LXR, his excellent disciple who understands his instruction, advice and guidance to the hilt. Not quite the same when I observed him on courtside with WSX and Sun Yu earlier. SY appeared clueless how to play Intanon, partly owing to her overeagerness to win, partly to her inability to read IR's game and partly to IR not allowing her to play her usual attacking game. But, not to worry, one learns more from failures than successes - Sun Yu is still young,most importantly,I believe she has the prerequisite talent and physicality as well as the passion, determination and aspiration to achieve her goals in life. Time will tell.
China always dominates in WS (in fact, China dominates in almost all events). Besides Chinese players from China, other overseas Chinese were extremely strong and decent too. eg: Xu in Germany, Pi in France, Yao in Netherlands, Wang Chen and Zhou Mi in Hong Kong. Denmark, Korea and Indonesia used to be the only countries, having good native WS players. But now, almost all those countries, (Germany, Hong Kong, France, Netherlands, Denmark and Indonesia) seem to phase out completely. Korea is the only one still there with competitive WS players. Thailand, India and Japan are up and coming to join the competition while Hong Kong, Denmark, Germany, Indonesia, France, Netherlands turning into 3rd class in WS. So many decent non Chinese WS players nowadays. This is all because the biggest change in WS badminton: no more Chinese players representing other countries. I will count Intanon as the best WS players except Chinese players, although she lost her best form a little bit now.
Nichaon Jindapon is by no means an easy opponent for LXR tomorrow. Remember how she stretched LXR the full distance the last time they met at the IND Open SS two months ago? I'm sure LXR will bear it in mind.
Among the ROW, besides Intanon R who is naturally gifted, I'd include the 17-yr-old Akane Y who started to really impress me after watching how she played LXR and IR this two weeks, her earlier performances against others at both junior and senior levels weren't that striking to me then. We shall see in future because many child prodigies tend to shine for a while and just as quickly disappear from the scene, only on or two last long enough to attain greatness, eg Taufik Hidayat. Maturity and experience really count. Look at the 20-yr-old Sun Yu who is being trained by the same CHN WS coaches as the older and more experienced Han Li and Liu Xin, both of whom have recently beaten Intanon - Han Li achieved it at the SIN Open SS in Apr and Liu Xin succeeded just last week at the JPN Open SS whilst Sun Yu faltered today.
I was very impressed with AY last Japan Open. Her main drawback is a stocky build less typical of a singles player. It might predispose her to injuries. Agree with other main points of your post.
