Depth of talents doesn't mean a player can only be good in one discipline. Not allowing double duty, as I've said, may disadvantage certain teams. Say, say a certain country has their best WS also part of their best XD pair as well, therefore, disallowing double duty would mean that country can only field in their WS1 and second-best XD pair. Badminton is basically an individual sport, whether in singles or doubles, unlike team sports like Basketball's 5-a side, Soccer's 11-a-side, and for which there's only one discipline, not five as in badminton. The Sudirman Cup Mixed Team is essentially five different disciplines competing separately , not simultaneously, as a team. To sum up, my main idea of expanding the format to best of seven is to ensure as far as possible that all five disciplines are contested for a true reflection of the relative strengths of each team, and minimise (not eliminate, impossible, and it's part and parcel of any competition, naturally) the impact of order of play favouring one team or other, or introducing a bit too much the element of surprise and unnecessary added pressure. In other words, the best way to gauge a team's overall strength is to have all five disciplines contested. I'm sure we all prefer to see every discipline contested than not. Whatever, the discussion we're having here is merely academic, but I won't rule out the possibility of such or similar changes being made to the Sudirman Cup in the future.
To those who want a 7-Match ups in Sudirman Cup, don't be a loser. It will only make things worse with complexion and busy schedule than ever. Five is already enough.
The current schedule of five is already stable enough and can contest all five discipline if it comes to a tie. Even more, it will make things interesting enough and unpredictable.
You forgot that I propose for the added two singles matches, namely MS2 and WS2, to be played last after the first five as of now are contested, and the MS2 and WS2 have to be ranked lower than their respective MS1 and WS1. So if Team A is definitely stronger than Team B,overall, then it should most likely win by 4 - 0 or 4 - 1. I should think such a revamped format has more pros than cons or more merits than demerits as stated. For me, seeing all five disciplines contested than only three is far better, a truer reflection of overall team strength, and far outweighs any other consideration.
These suggestion are merely giving chance for the countries who have two prominent players in MS/WS. I mean, those with a WR#20 and WR#50 are certainly about to get their team booted out.
Loser ?? What's the logic for saying that ? You mean every time a rule change is made, it's a loser's mentality, then BWF is the greatest loser ? More than half the time we see only three matches or at most four contested, a low percentage of all five discipline contested in every tie during the knockout stage.
The first five matches already pit the best players/pairs against each other, whether it's best-of-five or best-of-seven, the last two MS2 and WS2 only come into the picture if neither side scores a fourth victory by the fifth match in the best-of-seven. I repeat, the greatest merit is to have all five disciplines contested for a truer reflection of the two competing teams's relative overall strength.
The first five matches already pit the best players/pairs against each other, whether it's best-of-five or best-of-seven, the last two MS2 and WS2 only come into the picture if neither side scores a fourth victory by the fifth match in the best-of-seven. I repeat, the greatest merit is to have all five disciplines contested for a truer reflection of the two competing teams's relative overall strength.
The order of play for best-of-7 format would be simple: we use the current order of play of the best-of-5 format for the first 5 matches, and then the last two matches would be either MS2 and WS2 or WS2 and MS2. Fair and simple. It's not complicated. Just think of the the last two singles as extra time. They will be played if and when required.
To add, for the best-of-seven format, the order of play can be fixed to lessen the complexity of lineup or remain as of now similar to the best-of-five format but leaving MS2 and WS2 fixed as the 6th and 7th match. Just a suggestion. Maybe somebody has a better proposal ?
another scoring method would be to count every match won in your group instead of the head to head best of 5 tie. this way every event counts against every team. there would be fewer or possibly no meaningless matches at this stage, and far less surrendering of bad match ups. the # of matches won would determine seeding for the final round robin. tie breakers would be fewest # of games lost, followed by fewest # of points allowed. this year there were 4 groups of 3 teams. the winner of each group (4 teams) move on to the final 4. in the final group you also play every event against each team. the team with the most matches won wins the gold, 2nd most wins silver, 3rd most wins bronze. the final group would take 3 days, and you'd likely get to see all 5 events being played all 3 days. if 1 team has mathematically clinched 1st place before the end of day 3, but the others are still playing for 2nd or 3rd against them, the remaining matches would still be played. there would be fewer meaningless matches overall. coaching wise you have to plan how to maximize the depth of your lineups instead of just playing your 3 easy wins against each team. how does that sound?
You have a very warped view of this. The true reflection of the team's strength is whether they win or not, there is no 'relative strength' as badminton is by nature not really quantifiable - you only win or lose against opponents, you dpnt have an objective measure (like in track&field, for example, where you measure times/height/....). There might be an XD pair, that is overall much stronger (i.e. performs better against other opponents) but still loses to, say, the Korean pair who havent been able to impress elsewhere - be it because of conflicting play styles, one team handling the nerves better, or whatever. Your idea to emphasize 2 disciplines more in order to see more matches is not a good one - it puts more emphasis on 2 disciplines, whereas right now, all 5 disciplines are equally important. Just because it wouldnt usually end up featuring all 7 matches doesnt mean it wouldnt pose problems. Just think of my example, India might luck out and win all 4 singles while losing all doubles matches every step of the way. They'd still be crap in 3 out of 5 disciplines, but because they have 2 strong players in both MS and WS, they actually have a shot at the title. How that is more fair or more balanced, you'll have to explain to me, because I dont see it, and quite frankly, to sell a heavier emphasis on 2 disciplines as 'giving a truer view of their relative overall strength' or something is borderline retarded (balancing something by skewing the balance). The way events are played right noe is pretty close to perfect. Singles-heavy nations are still favored in TC and UC, as there's 3 singles played there, but with single gender teams theres no way around that, and it's more balanced (where the number of athletes is concerned) than the other way around. I repeat. You have groups for seeing all 5 matches. Knockout stage is knockout stage. You cant force having all 5 disciplines played by adding on filler matches and still retain balance. The only way to change things might be to play all 5 matches no matter what - but who the f*** would play seriously after the match is decided when they might need to perform well the next day...
Sounds like a lot of trouble. Knockout stages have a good reason ro exist - there's no debating a win. If Team 1 wins, they were better than Team 2 on that day, no way around it. With the group thing, you might get the 5 matches played and perhaps some more fight in matches played after the team match is decided, but if a Team wins all 3 ties 3-2 for a 9-6 overall score, they're still winners over the Team that wins their other matches 5-0 for a 12-3 overall score. That'd lead to some bright mind protesting again (They're so much better, look at the score!)....and also, groups have only brought trouble outside of preliminary stage of team events (London 2012, anyone?). There has been no valid reason to doubt this format, with the exception of one individual not comprehending that winning is winning, no matter what, in a knockout stage, and a 3-0 and 3-2 scoreline are essentially the same at that point. You dont count individual points for a 'truer reflection of pverall strength' either. Winning a close match is worth just as much as winning a clear one. It's a sport of comparison, not objective achievements.
I couldn't hear what was being said in totality, the background noise and HYX sobbing but I did caught her saying that probably things went too smooth for them until now, hence the disappointment. Yeah, the AE where they almost lost and that would be their first disappointment and they would take this defeat better.
Why no relative strength in mixed team events? You yourself argued that if CHN were to play KOR 10 times, she would win 8 out of 10. I would say everything is relative to each other. Borderline Retarded? Must you be so petulant every time in a debate ? So having two singles and three doubles where more than half the time, only three or at most four matches are played out is not favouring doubles ? And why do you think the TUC have three singles and two doubles in the matchups ? So why not Sudirman Cup have four singles and three doubles, with the two extra singles played last ? Anyway, looks like we're not going to agree, so let's just agree to disagree. It's still very much just an academic exercise we're having now. No big deal. I 've covered all my grounds, nothing more to add without repeating myself. Enough for me.
@j4ckie When India won the Uber Bronze in 2014, it wasn't 3 WS. It was 2 WS and 1 WD winning the matches. In this 2017 Sudirman Cup, India troubled both DEN and INA in 2 doubles matches, XD and WD. India lost 1 MS to DEN. Even in the 3-0 loss to China, India gave a scare in XD and went down fighting. I agree India has a lot of work to do and has a long way before they can match powerhouse doubles but with India's limited abilities in doubles they are performing above potential. Indian doubles aren't useless!
There's a reason why we care about history and records, how many times the Cup is won, who won it, and when. Just like Head-to-Head.
Oh, I'm not saying they haven't come a long way or that they didn't perform well. Just im comparison, amongst strong badminton nations, they are very very singles-heavy.
which is why i suggest tweaking the rules a little specifically for 'team' events... to create variety, to make it special. yes, as a fan of watching badminton i do prefer to see every discipline played. i can see all 5 disciplines played at the hundreds of other individual tournaments throughout the year. but, as a fan of the sport of badminton i do not want to see a reduction in the equal standing of md, wd & xd when it comes to team events.
It's not like 90% of matches are decided 3-0 or something like that, so your point of mostly having three matches is moot. Additionally, your lumping together of all doubles disciplines is faulty, as they are in fact distinct disciplines, and the SC has one match of each of the 5 disciplines played. As I said previously, the imbalance can't be helped in TC and UC since you need an uneven number of matches, but I guess that point went over your head as well. Also, this is a team event, not a nation event - so it's never going to be an accurate showcase of a nation's overall strength in the sport, since only one player or pair plays each discipline. China would be more than okay with playing 3 ties per discipline, I'd wager, whereas other nations have trouble putting together a squad covering each of the 5 with a single player/pairing. And yeah, the fact that this Chinese team wins over this Korean team 8 out of 10 times doesn't mean this matchup wasn't fair or needs changing - it just means they didn't live up to their potential that day. Lu/Huang will still probably go down as the better XD pair than the Koreans, and Fu will undoubtedly be rembembered as a better MD player than anyone in the Korean squad, but they couldn't win the title this year. S**t happens. I also lost matches against weaker opponents, or won against stronger ones, doesn't mean I want to revamp the whole system because I couldn't perform well that day. Side note - you made a bad point. I called out that bad point. There was no comment towards your person, yet you called me petulant - I wonder who the immature one is, eh? I have trouble dealing with blatant hypocrisy or idiocy, and sometimes make my annoyance too clear. It's not a kids' forum, so one strong adjective shouldn't be too much for this place. If you prefer, I'll call the idea "unsupported by any principle resembling balance with insufficient thought put towards possible consequences".
