JO is probably the last tourney before Olympics as the Ina Open and Msia Open may nt be held as scheduled (June)... tht left with the Thomas/Uber Cup final in May.. I wonder wht bench mark is Li YB gonna use to select the MS representatives as I believe, he wd wanna send some1 who is capable of beating players frm othr countries instead of their own players... it sure is a big headache, so far, only Lin Dan hs showed a clear cut and worthy choice....
despite having 3 pairs in the WD last 8, all japs are out... Ra/Lee wr stretched to rubber gms by Olsen/Jorgensen 15-8, 11-15, 15-3.. a rematch of the KO final pitting thm against Yang/Zhang... with the fresher Ra/Lee, wonder whthr the results will remain the same... and taipei players chien/cheng md it to the semis, i think ths is the 1st time a chn taipei pair mks it to the semis of a 5-star tourney....
Intrested to see the Lin/Gade match, does anyone know if it will be recorded for someone to put it on dvd...Han?? I think Chen seems to struggle against Korean players, especially if they have a good day. When he plays players who say "give me all you got" and retrieve them, then he loses the plot, gets tired. WIth other more defensive players (Eg. Roslin) he tends to be careful not to lift as much, and as a consequence, Chen is more selective about his shots, but Korean players seem to just make him play his shots by making their lifts high, and giving him time to smash, but pinning him to back. Hafiz also used this tactic in 2003 AE, when he rarely used attacking, or normal clears, but used very high slow, defensive clears. Very difficult for Li yong Bo to decide..Can anyone say who the CHN MS players have lost to? Apart from lin dan... as someone said somewhere that they choose the team on whether they lose too opposition from other countries. Also are the people they lost to important (Ie potential Medalists) for instance Bao losing to Ghaffar may not count against him, as he is not a real madal threat, but xia losing easy to gade, and bao beating Roslin, may be in Baos favour.
Candra/Halim lost to Kim DM/Ha TK 5-15, 15-13, 4-15... again, both Luluk/Alvin and Eng Hian/Flandi advanced to the semis.. and Cai/Fu beat Lee DS/Yoo YS for the 3rd straight times ths year 15-10, 15-3...
Because LDS/YYS game is based on speed + power, and Cai/Fu tend to be good in that departement, I think It will be difficult to beat them. However when they play people who are a little more clever in their game, like Choong/Lee, Ha/Kim, and INA pairs,I think they come unstuck. Aswith alle players they need to develop their game to beat these pairs consistenly, I am sure they will in the future, as they are still very young. I think Kim/Ha will beat flandy/eng this time. I also think Widianto/marissa will win mixed. In my opinion they are very underrated, If widianto take scontrol, they are a force, but Marissa sometimes get very nervous at the net with easy shots, witness their Quarter final against CQQ/ZTT in AE, they would have won in straight games, had marissa not missed three, yes three net kills, at least 1 foot above net, and no more than 1 foot from the net.
i juz get to watch the repeat of Korea Open men's singles 2day (i miss the live telecast last sun) there's one part after a hard smash.... xuanze rub n massage his right arm a little with a painful expression... i think xuanze's shoulder injury is recurring....
