Thanks, I think you are right about Zhang Ning. Zhang Ning told WSX to smash more but Gao FJ not to smash until the right time. I don't know why Zhang Ning would tell a shorter player to smash more often but a tall player to smash less. I don't understand the logic.
She didn't play well the entire tourney. Infact what was the last time you saw her playing "well" "Well" here is ofcourse, "well" by "her standards"
Simply because WSX just "never smashed". Although she had a game that would do pretty well without a "kill", but her "procrastinating" abilities often put her in troubles. OTOH junior players are more keen to finish off the rallies at every "half chance" simply because they lack the confidence in their game and doesn't have the physicality to match their illustrious opponents. CM is "usually" to "heavy" on smashes that she pulls her guards down and if you see that chink in the armour the point is yours. Hence the wait. I am in awe with her coaching style, not animated like the previous coach (short hair middle age, I don't remember the name, pardon me) and obviously Mr dummy Chen Jin PS height and WS has no proportionality these days, TTY and AY can smash as good as anybody
Like my chinese friend said , 2 men can never work together. Thats the culture embedded since young. He also said thats why they suck in football. We are good in every sport but we cant even get to WorldCup. All are just running like chickens.
1. If Yamaguchi wins tomorrow, it will be the first time a Japanese player wins anything in China Open. 2. If Gao FJ wins, a new star is born.
I feel like this is a must win for Akane confidence-wise. Losing her 5th final this year, especially against a qualifier, would crush her mentally, it would be one too many. She already seems pretty down since the French Open, not her usual bubbly self who's enjoying herself on court and play to entertain the public. Even today, despite her win in straight sets, the body language was not good at all. Hope she gets a boost of motivation tomorrow. The coaches caught it up too and I noticed they spend a lot of time simply giving encouragement, cheering akane up during intervals (especially during that catastrophic French Open final)
Imo, height is a huge advantage in WS (doubles as well) and I feel this is supported by data. Only because players like NO, AY and TTY are absolutely exeptional shot makers (add RI and you've probably got the best 4 in world, Steen always says so as well) and top class retrievers, they can compensate for their shortcomings )). TTY is also already 7 centimeters taller than the other two, and she is significantly better at smashing - she uses it more often, scores more points with it, has more pace. Since I don't want to make unsubstantiated claims and got curious as well, I looked it up. Turns out the average height of top 20 WS players is 168,5cm. There are only 2 players shorter than 160cm and 14 players are 168cm or taller. In fact, there are only 4 (5 maybe) players shorter than 160 in the top 50.
GaoFangJie needs to win this just as much. imo, its very important to win your first final. If she is truly a LXR or WYH type of caliber, she will win this and AY confidence will be crushed. Its like ticket to top 3 of WS in China so that the coach will focus on her. Runner up is just not good enough despite cinderella story. China have not won WS this year so it will be up to her to prevent history. Like Axelsen is good but he lost his first 6 Finals or so.
Just watched the first game between CM and GFJ. Marin made many errors, sending the shuttle out, forced and unforced.
The 4 top 20 players from China are 175 on average. The 3 top Koreans over 172, same as the Indian ladies. I guess thats average for women in those countries.
Definitely a must-win and I expect her to win too as she is in MUCH better form than Sindhu and Carolina. Losing would relegate her to SJH status, the consistent one with no titles.... crushing her self-confidence even further.
and are you sure ChenLong will lose to Axelsen? I dont think so you know. Axelsen still will have stage fright playing at China against OlympicChampion. Its Chen's to lose just like how he eats up Son yesterday, imo
Nobody can stop markus/Kevin from getting bwf player of the year. Srikanth withdrew from Hong Kong open as well. He did not recover from injury yet. Sent from my SM-G600FY using Tapatalk
But its tough against Boe/Mog. Always feel the experience one will have better chance of winning and their experiences shown through in the last 2 matches. They were on the brink of defeat against MadsDuo ( in which i can feel sorry for them)
Actually the height average in those countries are lower. But this is an effect of the prejudice against smaller sizes in sports in some circles. Pi Hongyan, for example, was rejected from the national team (and went to France) not because she was not good enough, but because it was taught she was too short for success (she had a nice career afterward, a frequent top 5). There was some talk about this concerning Chinese badminton and sports in general. In France the same problem affected the French football federation in the recent 15 years. They selected teens that were tall and physical. During the same time, Spain cultivated technical players, whatever height they had. They brillant results of Spain led the French federation to reconsider its policy