Agree with you that the juniors should be sent out to play more often, I remember SFX was kept in cold storage for more than 1 year after becoming a WJ Champion. By the time he was sent out to play his WJC cohorts, LZJ and Wong Charoeng were already playing at a much higher level. Players like DTY, LL. WCX, Liu Shuming, Zhu XC, Sun Chao, Liu Chenxi should be given their chances early in preparation for the LA Olympics cycle. Of these players Sun Chao is the most promising. He was named as third singles behind LSF and LLX for the Asian team championship. Was looking forward to see him play, but China pulled out because of the spike in Covid cases in Malaysia. On a side note, the MS match last night was like a preview of the Paris Olympics finals, that is if there is a Paris Olympics . We are living in a very turbulent time.
Too little to late for CHN MS to catch up? We'll see how their development, started this year and culminated on Paris 2024.
Oh no, Zhang Yiman to face Chen Yufei in the opening round at All England ! and these two are in the same quadrant with He Bingjiao and together with Wang Zhiyi are all in the same lower half . Only Han Yue is alone in the upper half. What a lousy draw for the CHN WS.
Saw that Zhang Nan has changed his serving style even further now, basically raising the racket and playing the serve in one motion. Somewhat similar to Ko Sung Hyun now... Made more errors on the serve than LC today, but delivered when it counted while 15-20 down (including some cheeky drive serves). But interestingly, when he tried his serve during the intervals, he reverted to more of his old style with holding the shuttle longer and raising the racket beforehand.
China's MS talent does not have any world-beater talent, at least in All-England. What I observe is that all the players have a very good basics and fundamentals, but something is not there yet. Lack of finishing touches and power smashes that could kill the shuttle. Shi Yuqi is A+ in all that department but he seems to be missing right now.
Its quite interesting how much Chinas Doubles have improved in the last 2 tournaments . Is it due to foreign coaches I wonder?
If they really banned Shi Yuqi, i think they should probably get him back now if they want any chance of winning something in the near future, it’s been a while since the whole Thomas Cup fiasco. Unless he is still injured? They literally have no other top players. The juniors are coming up but they need more time.
I was surprised at Zhang/ Zheng winning as the Indian pair overcame some vgood opposition . Congratulations. Btw Cyf lost badly to AY. Was HBJ's W/O a genuine injury? I thought this sort of thing was frowned
Zheng Siwei is wearing a very noticeable knee support. For his very dynamic style of play, this is quite a worry as he won’t be able to cover as fast. I have a feeling his new partnership is there solely to bring up a new player.
It’s been mentioned that he’s been sent back to the provincial team. That’s a big demotion. China is in a state of flux. They might be prioritising a strategy for building up to Paris 2024.
olympics has always been china's highest priority. syq would be a non-factor in paris even if he was still playing. this next generation of ms we're watching are too fast and powerful and will be even more so in 2024, when syq will be 2 years older and slower.
Iirc he is supposed to join the national team in the near future in preparations for the Asian Games. With his on and off going injuries it might be his last shot, similar to CL.
According to what I read in the Chinese media the squad was down with flu ( Omicron?) or injuries. Zhengyu was already down with flu in the SF. She insisted on playing in the finals because she had never reached the finals before. No wonder she was so lethargic, more of a passenger on ZSX's bus. Jia YF played with an injury and flu. Xia YT and ZYM are injured, LGZ and HBJ are unwell too. Hence the decision to withdraw en bloc. Incidentally, I think TTY was having a flu too. I saw her using no less than 5 tissue papers during the break of her match against Okuhara.
https://sports.sina.com.cn/others/badmin/2022-03-22/doc-imcwipih9922382.shtml The team is already in Switzerland and will stay there a bit longer for recovery. Then, some players will go to Korea for the next two tournaments and the rest will go to Chiang Mai training base to prepare for the Thomas Cup and Uber Cup.