I wonder why GC is not making a big fuss about her winning three SS in a row. She usually like these kind of stats.
Tai also said something about the history of the tournament in her interview. I even wonder if the players were given some prematch preparation / information on what they would need to say for an interview on TV. As for the interviews that I saw, the players were pretty good in front of the cameras. Good for the image of the game.
Before World Championships, before the Olympics, the only games in every Malaysian boy's dream was to play in the All England and the Thomas Cup. In the 50's, 60's, 70's these were the only badminton tournaments. I guess it was the same for the Indonesians. I watched Hartono, Christian, Lim Siew King, Punch Gunanlan, Kim and Kim, and others. Those were the days. The All England was the most prestigious one and still is.
The All England 2017 has been concluded yesterday, XD final is the most interesting one, a nail biting match between Rio silver medalists Chan PS/Goh LY and Lu K/Huang YQ. The Malaysian had big chance when turned the momentum at second games when they leveled up the scoreline from 12-16 but it's too bad Chan produced three errors to hit the shuttle into the net, gave the opportunity for the Chinese to win crucial second game. In decider, Lu/Huang who looked fitter than their opponent played more aggressive and boosted high confidence to seal maiden All England title. An anticlimax final in men's singles, badminton master Lee Chong Wei was toying his much younger final rival, Shi Yuqi. The Chinese rookie couldn't develop his game plan, under pressure and was pushed to move all corner even got ankle injury in 18-10 second game. A precious lesson for the young Yuqi to comeback stronger in upcoming tournaments. It needs perfect combination to beat Lee Chong Wei, mental strength, high technical skill and strong stamina. It's unbelievable fact for 34 years old Lee to pocket 4th AE crown despite being injured last month and no wonder he will back to Birmingham next year. Chang Ye Na/Lee So Hee realized their childhood dream to lift AE trophy, the Korean pair were unstoppable after won opening game narrowly against Juhl/Pedersen. Marcus Fernaldi Gideon/Kevin Sanjaya Sukamuljo continue Indonesian tradition to pick one title in All England, they performed really well to thwart second title for China here. Last final, an entertaining WS duel that wowed badminton fans with their skill demonstration, a close and intense match but the cool Tai Tzu Ying stayed focus, she denied rubber games to save two game points and seal the match. A winning streak at HKG Superseries, season-ending Dubai Finals and All England, consistent performance by current world number one.
Yup, 5 titles for 5 nations, we often see this balancing title distribution lately, good for badminton development. Everything will not stay same forever, including China domination. IMO, China is in transition period, their young players have not mature yet to be world beater but they have some promising new talents to invest in future years.
Thought you are American? Pardon me, I just read you're French in American territory! Reminds me about the great French actor/singer Maurice Chevalier.
Anyone knows anything about this? LCW's knee doesn't seem that affected but I recall it was pretty serious, as in career changing.
Not sure, but no one in the field is able to challenge LCW even if he was only 90-95% fit. Players have a mental block when LCW is on the other side of the court, exerting pressure on every shot as he can counter attack fromm any position with not just smashes but with unbelievable cross court drops and insane in the membrane netshots.
LCW was pretty lucky not to face any worthy opponent. It's not his fault but I imagine he'd be more thrilled if he beat the likes of Chen Long or Lin Dan.
I have trouble with this argument because in this tournament, he beat everybody who beat so-called worthier opponents. Why not just enjoy the win?
I enjoy the win. But I also don't pretend like he beat anyone worthwhile. It's not his fault, just the way it happened. Just because Chen Long lost to 'unknown player A', doesn't make player A suddenly better or worthier than CL.
I agree, in general, it doesn't make them better than CL/LD - but in this tournament, unknown players A and B were indeed better than CL and LD. Also, these aren't exactly unknown players - TS and SYQ are ranked 11 and 10, respectively, reflecting the quality of their recent performances.
We can't say they're better, we can say they perform better at one particular match. Upsets happen all the time. Regardless of where they rank, lets call it what it is. They're not worthy opponents.
Has anyone seen the full match and can tell my how often Fernaldi got faulted? Both Indonesian players serve very very high, but I've never seen a legal serve from Fernaldi. It's so illegal it borders on comical....he starts at an illegal height, then raises the shuttle even higher while swinging the racket. This is why I have serious, serious doubts about BWF umpires/service judges, you cannot let something like that pass. Even if he does it consistently, and would deserve a fault for every serve - fault him until he does it right. No matter how long it takes, 3, 4, 5, 10 faults....enforce your own rules, BWF. Congrats on the win to both of them, though, I don't think it was that serve that decided the match That aside, very interesting finals participants, I think. Not the usual suspects all over again, and 5 different nations taking the 5 titles - I think that's nice to see. Better than the utter and complete Chinese dominance in 2010-2012, where it was almost an exception for another nation to take a Gold from them at a major tournament (except the MD at the AE ). Also quite impressive to see LCW pulling this off with a knee that's not at a 100%. It was pretty visible that he was trying not to stress it as much, with some different, slower round-the-head movement than we usually see from him. I can't really think of another player who won a major tournament with an issue like that. I'll also pay some attention to Lu Kai in the future, he reminds me a little bit of Zhang Nan in the sense that he doesn't play a particularly spectacular game, and doesn't go for 100% speed and power like a lot of the other Chinese XD and MD players. Let's see if this a preview of things to come or more of a one-off achievement (like Liu/Qiu's AE win).
Well, the more worthy opponents succumbed to the lesser competitors, i think it shows a shittier outlook on them rather than on Datok LCW.