I guess, we can say the first edition of IBL is successful. Frankly, i was a but skeptical about it, but I am glad with the things turning out. This should get more interesting as the tournament progresses.
where to find the latest scores? Thanks on tournamentsoftware.com, it shows like this: 1 MS1 - 2 WS - 6-21 8-21 0-0 0:26 3 MD - 21-14 21-20 0-0 0:34 4 MS2 - 21-10 21-7 0-0 0:28 5 XD - 21-20 21-15 0-0 0:33
i found the results from newspaper: Pune Pistons beat Mumbai Masters 3-2 Men's singles: Mumbai Masters Vladimir Ivanov beats Pune Piston's Sourabh Varma 21-16 21-14 Women's singles: Pune Piston's Juliane Schenk beats Mumbai Masters' Tine Baun 11-21 21-10 11-7 Men's doubles: Mumbai Masters' Pranav Chopra/Vladimir Ivanov beat Pune Piston's Sanave Thomas/Rupesh Kumar 21-12 20-21 11-9. Men's singles: Pune Pistons' Nguyen beats Marc Zwiebler of Mumbai Masters 21-18 21-13 Mixed doubles: Pune Pistons' JF Nielsen/Ashwini Ponnappa beat Mumbai Masters' Pranav Chopra/Siki Reddy 21-20 21-13. Delhi Smashers beat Hyderabad Hotshots 3-2 Men's singles: Hyderabad Hotshots' Tanongsak beats Delhi Smashers' Sai Praneeth 19-21 21-19 11-7. Women's singles: Hyderabad Hotshots' Saina Nehwal beats Delhi Smasher's Arundhati Pantawane 21-8 21-6. Men's doubles: Delhi Smashers' Tan Boon Heong/Koo Kien Keat beat Hyderabad Hotshots' Shem/Tarun Kona 21-14, 21-20. Men's singles: Delhi Smashers' Daren Liew beats Hyderabad Hotshots' Taufik Hidayat 21-10 21-7. Mixed doubles: Delhi Smashers' V.Diju/Prajakta Sawant beat Hyderabad Hotshots Shem Goh/Pradnya Gadre 21-20 21-15.
many people think Hyderabad's loss a big upset. The fact is, Hyderabad spent only $55k totally on the men's singles. That's only 20% of the total budget, while there are 2 men's singles, taking 40% of the total matches. Their men's doubles are very week too, only 3 persons can play men's doubles, and both Goh and Lim (2nd stringers from Malaysian, also the winner of Malyasian open), got only humiliating $10,000. Their mixed doubles are never heard of too. There's no wonder they lose. They will be one of the two worst teams eliminated in the group session.
That's what makes it interesting to see new tactics. Does your team spend more on a player with lots of publicity (Saina) leaving less to buy other players or try to have a 'balanced' team. Here, we are seeing the results of such decisions. Looks like Hyderabad prioritised publicity.
Its rather lack of real time knowledge... my assumption is that the bidders were not followers of badminton but just made their bidding decision solely based player's CV's. I mean who in the world with a sound knowledge of current badminton would bid for TH with his current form. I dont mean any offence but we all know what kind of form TH is in right now....
It seems few players may pull out or quit in 2nd week...as IBL did ask INA to send players for replacement...let's see how it turns out tomorrow....
Seriously. The day i saw TH's name in the auctions, preferred over so many better players, i thought they could have hired me. I'd have done it for free
How come the organizer didn't manage to pull players from China, Korea or Japan? It would make the tournament much better to watch.
China have national games right now.While Korea conditioned all the players who goes under auction must be selected.....Don't know about Japan...
Carolina is playing great.. She lost a lot of my respect today though, masking the Li-Ning logos on her clothing in the match. A really disrespectful gesture in my book against the sponsors of her team. It could of course be "explained" by her contract would not allowing her to use competitors clothing, but I doubt she would have much tighter contract than all other worldplayers seen in the IBL. And as she is using the same clothing as the rest of the team it is pretty obvious what brand the clothing is anyway. Also if that is YYs requirement, just for her, I think they are being stupid, especially as this is a YY sponsored tournament, and she has YY-logos on the racket etc.
Hyderabad is like Mecca of Badminton in India, from the city per-se they would be a city that would relate with Badminton as sport. And yes regarding the upset thing its more because of appeal of SN and TH then there actual strength on paper, more so because all the teams are so evenly balanced or unbalanced whatever you may say, every team has only 1 sure winner(unless an off day for there star player)and for the rest they are hoping playing against opponents weakness or lets see whose day is today and I may get lucky today kinda combination, also the limited set of players is a huge contributor to this state for the teams. TH is a big name but surely a similar let down as he doesnt seems to be able to put up a fight against Indian new crop let alone justify his bidding.... a couple of years back he could have been a sure point against everyone but LCW so yes in MS they could be termed as weak, but coming to the doubles and XD they have got what everyone else has got.... Goh not coming up good in any of the matches for them has been a factor in it though... Indian girls in the XD are more or less at the same level. Pradnya gadre is similar to JG,AP,Siki Reddy or Prajakta Sawant... (AP could be better but she seems to be not living up to her stature, & hence Siki Reddy impressed me more) So with a good prospect in WS, 1MS out of two, and 1 out of 2 doubles they are in with a chance in all the ties. Thats why all the teams looks evenly matched. Ivanov has tilted the balance towards Mumbai but only when LCW plays!!