@Justin L I think TTY fell into the trap of AY. That's way too much pace. She should have reduced the pace. AY is so comfy running at high pace. AY you just won a World Championship!
Just give me a tight 3 game match, please! I want to feel like i'm on the edge of my seat. Boring and one-sided affairs so far.
So happy for Yamaguchi...well deserved...She seemed to be always overshadowed by Okuhara in terms of achievements, though she is more skillful imho.
TTY lost possibly her only chance to win the biggest tittle of badminton and enter the Elite club however with a WC Silver and Oly silver She is already a great player and surely will always be remembered as a fantastic Silver Queen !! Congrats AY...You are the World Champion and now just need that elusive Oly Medal to fulfill your career...Super happy for both of you ! I do feel TTY's reason to lose is her nerves...at biggest staged she just becomes more error prone and thats exactly what AY took advantage of and gave evrything back because she knew if she keeps giving back TTY will make errors thats what happened at the OLY as well. Anyways Congrats to Both AY for her Second WC Medal and the biggest one and TTY on her first wc and second Biggest silver medal !
The Semifinal is almost always more exciting than The final in general. This I have learned since 5 years ago
It's also not a good idea to play at the same pace, whether high or not, all the time - mixing it up, fast and slow, and suddenly injecting pace works best, keep your opponent guessing.
Who would've thought Tai Tzu Ying performed worse than Zhang Yiman against the in-form Akane Yamaguchi.
Congrats Akane! Great performance. A deserving champion. I'm rooting for TTY and LKY the most for the final. TTY, still with beautiful shots but the errors... The nerves got into her. A fantastic player nonetheless. Both Akane and TTY should get more gold in the future, hopefully in the big events as well.
I'm not "suggesting" it. It's a fact. We know they didn't train properly ahead of the Olympics. We know that Momota and Yamaguchi weren't in shape for the tournament. We know that the #1 ranked pair couldn't perform there because of injury, we know that an injury for the WC pair followed and Nagahara just got back from injury. We know Okuhara has been out since forever. We know that Momota was played way too hard post Olympics with absolutely unecessary and lastly injury inducing stints in Paris and Bali. We know that Watanabe is injured and couldn't perform in the final while Sapsiree has played 500 matches in three months and is still going strong. If you think that such a colossal toll of injuries/lack of form to the top players is a coincidence that's your choice. The literally only thing that saved the team this year was Akane, and with the amount of matches she played in the last months, it is a miracle she didn't injure herself either.
I won't be the least bit surprised that with this umpteenth loss at yet another major championships, Tai Tzu Ying , losing heart, may just decide to call it quits finally.