LD is damn good, he can dictate the match anyway he want...he can easily up his tempo if the need arises...and tht is what he is showing us at the moment against tago....everytime when tago seems to want to take off, lin dan will up his tempo and come storming back
maybe li yongbo directed lin dan to not overly exert himself in order to conceal his 'true strength' which can only be revealed in the olympic games so that his opponents cannot analyse his game prior to olympics
Your pt 2 is a bold and interesting thought,not entirely far-fetched or wildly imaginative, the hassle of acting it out and not slugging it out is unpalatable, to say the least. Frankly, I'd love to see LD and CL battling it out and treating us to a great match,irrespective who wins in the end;after all,their OG qualifications are already assured, so why not. Doesn't matter even if it turns to to be a grueling match that tires out the winner who then has to face a relatively fresher Lee CW, for I never seriously consider this a definite advantage as all top players are supposed to be supreme athletes, it would only matter somewhat if you've just played a whole tournament before coming to the next one almost immediately, as in the case of LXR from the German Open vs Tai TY today; take it as a form of training, except that CL will be playing in the Swiss Open a couple days later. Maybe CL wanted to conserve his energy thinking he wouldn't be able to beat LD anyway,at least not now. Personally,I never like this kind of speculation, but with the first two sets so tightly fought and one apiece, then for CL to lose the 3rd quite easily,one can't helped but think along that line as you've intimated. Whatever it is, Lin Dan vs Kenichi Tago should be a worthwhile match to watch, followed most probably by the Dream Final tomorrow.
Lin Dan will be playing one two gears below his best against Tago so as to conserve his energy for tomorrow
LD's body language says, "damn it, Tago, can you just play better and win? i don't want to play LCW tomorrow."
LD must be frustrated with tago's lack of desire to give him a fight so he decided to just sprint away and end it