Lots of drama today ! MD: So far Ahsan/ Setiawan and WataEndo looked the most confident and sharp (honorable mention for Lee/Wang) WD: Seeing the state of Japanese WD -injured hirota and very shaky Nagamatsu- Jia/Chen look like the big favorite for gold to me. Fukuhiro would have lost in straight games to Jia/Chen or even the Korean Kim Kong with the kind of performance they have shown in the group stages, and I am not sure that they can do better than what they've shown... Fukushima is having to cover 75% of the court which is gonna take a tool on her eventually. It's really sad for them but sadly injuries are part of competitve sport, not much you can do. Singles has been pretty uninteresting so far but a few notable match up tomorrow: YAMAGUCHI vs GILMOUR, Sindhu vs CHEUNG Ngan Yi, Jonathan C vs LOH and LZJ vs LEVERDEZ could be interesting too. Also looking forward to the mixed doubles quarter final !
Oh Boy what if WD QuarterFInal is AllKorea, AllChina and AllJapan affair.. Just wow. think CHN will be more disappointed, seems like they have this under control until the final match.
WD group stage result : GROUP WINNER A - Polii/Rahayu (INA) B - Matsumoto/Nagahara (JPN) C - Lee SH/Shin SC (KOR) D - Chen QC/Jia YF (CHN) RUNNER-UP A - Fukushima/Hirota (JPN) B - Piek/Seinen (NED) C - Du Y/Li YH (CHN) D - Kim SY/Kong HY (KOR) It’s pretty surprise that FukuHiro can’t take group A top spot but understandable since Sayaka Hirota isn’t fully recovered yet from ACL injury. The Indonesians can optimize their chance to overcome their arch rivals this time with their impressive attacking style particularly in third game when the Japanese struggling a lot to cope the pressure with such imperfect condition. Lee/Shin make comeback when it mattered most to beat Chinese second ranked duo Du/Li in relatively comfortable way. Two shrieking combination Chen/Jia and Kim/Kong involve in fierce clash to hunt group D winner. WD knock-out draw
Wow. I think nice draw in MD.. Minions vs AaronSoh LiLiu vs AstrupRasmussen LeeWang vs EndoWatanabe KamuraSonoda vs AhsanHendra I dont mind having all Japan SemiFinal. that will give chance for 2 medals. Almost identical draw for Japan in WD as well. I had LeeShin, KimKong and DuLi as champions. that look good.
Wow, that's gonna be a challenge for Ahsan/Setiawan, having to overcome (probably) 2 Japanese pairs - particularly Endo / Watanabe. After seeing them barely beat Seo / Choi today, I'm not confident from here on in..
oh no....Chen/Jia and Japanese pairs are having difficult spots. Hopefully the Indonesian can go to final!
I had LiLiu winning the title man. I hope Japan can get 2 medals. Paperwise, look like a perfect draw for Minions. Win any match and they are in contention for Medals.
I guess Japanese WD's chances have become really slim now. I don't see Matsumoto/Nagahara winning the Koreans; FukuHiro winning the Chinese would also be a miracle at this stage. Meanwhile in MD, Minions have a pretty easy draw on the road to finals.
Li/Liu can beat Kevin/Gideon in slow hall if they do the correct tactics. Then they just need to beat Endo/Watanabe or Ahsan/Setiawan in the final. Seems doable actually.