What you can expect from IBF? nothing but stupidity. Now it's the schedule! As the top seed (number one seed), winning all the way 5:0, China is arranged to play semi-final in the evening of June 1st. The final is at 1pm June 2nd. The 5 matches semi-final will mostly finished after mid-night. Therefore, there is no time for enough rest and strategy plan. While Indonesia and Korea will play at 12pm(noon) June 1st. This is unfair. Even if there is no fairness, the top seed should be favored. It is just stupid, rediculous,disgraceful,outrageous!
outrageous schedule? Probably not that stupid.... June 1 is a working day.....there's a decent audience only after working hours. I guess they want the audience to see a good match, which involves the best team. You do want an audience, don't you? Yes, it makes it very inconvenient for the best team (China this time).
Re: outrageous schedule? good point! I thought that way too. I heard from friends in Spain that the ticket is free, everyone can get it for free by just signing it. The other question is that even if for the sake of decent audiences, why not arrange both in the evening hours, just like they did in yesturday.
Re: outrageous schedule? hm.. whether it's is right or wrong, it's just another act of IBF bending over for the media people. Free ticket is one positive aspect of low popularity of badminton brings to us badminton fans. Although we dont have 5 or 7 stars tournaments in canada, i can walk in and watch any badminton tournaments free of charge.
Re: stupid, rediculous,disgraceful,outrageous sche Why should the matches be arranged to favour the top seed or anyone else in general?
Re: stupid, rediculous,disgraceful,outrageous sche should not be favouring any party. The finalists should have similar amount of rest period or certain minimium amount of resting time before the final match.
Re: stupid, rediculous,disgraceful,outrageous sche I tend to agree with you cooler. A team should not be given an unfair advantage or disadvantage based on a ranking/reputation. However, don't ranked teams or players often get a first round bye in a tournament? That would seem to be an unfair advantage, but on first glance it doesn't seem so objectionable. I'll have to think on that one. Hmmmmm.......
Re: stupid, rediculous,disgraceful,outrageous sche So do I, though I put it in the form of a rhetorical question.
Re: stupid, rediculous,disgraceful,outrageous sche i think seeding players is ok so that supposedly top players end up playing against each others. These highly seeded players should not think that early rounds are all easy as they run the embrassing risk of being eliminated early from a well prepared new rookie. We see this quite often in tennis. For example in the now playing frech open, V. williams and P. rafters lost in early round while Sampra just barely beat a 250th ranked player. OT: I never had a favour tennis player until i saw Marat safin walks onto the tennis court and 1 minute of his moves. This guy could go far and i think he still have more potential. I heard he is looking for a full time coach.
Did you know... That this hoopla is indeed for the TV viewers. More TVs are watched during those evening hours, than any other point in the day, that's why they call it prime time. Also with their "brain child" 5x7 system, this will bring in more money for the IBF, because of more commercial breaks between the sets. Still stupid idea from the game's standpoint, but I guess they gotta start somewhere.
Re: outrageous schedule? Two points: China obviously don't have a problem with the schedule or they would have protested. Secondly, you all talk about raising the profile of badminton to get tv & media coverage, but whenever IBF does anything that is remotely 'media friendly' there is an immediate backlash from people objecting to them bending over backwards to please the media - you can't have it both ways...
Re: outrageous schedule? but strictly speaking.....it isn't fair ........one team has 6 more hours rest than the other.
Re: outrageous schedule? I agree with Brain's opinion. I think It seems somewhat of rush for the winner between Danmark and China to prepare the next day's final. It should take a day off between semifinal and final.....well......unfortunately, I am not the chairman of IBF.....However, in the same token both teams also have longer time to prepare the semifinal if compare with other semifinal teams.