She grabbed another Europian Grand Prix in Swisszertalnd. She seems to be great as and when chinese WS players are not in the competition. Does anyone have thier comment?
I believe she has what it takes...skill wise. She needs to overcome her lack of confidence when the Chinese are around.
There is a very good reason why she plays for France and not China. If she stayed in China, she would be almost a nobody.
Yes, and it will be tremendous if she could prove to the world that the Chinese can be defeated, especially in the women domain when China practically has a stranglehold for the recent past.
In fact, China is trying to get Pi hongyan now ... i guess now they realized that they were stupiid to let her go !! But it's great for france, having this great player and also this great person =p i spoke to her several times she's extremely sympathic =)) About defeating chinsese, in the swiss open she defeated the only player in the top ten that she never beat ... WANG CHEN ! and easily !! 11-5 11-4 I guess now she should have more confidence when she meet a chinese i guess this is more psychological than others thing ! she has everything to beat them .... =)) CONGRATULATION HONGYAN
I join you in congratulating Pi Hongyan, who struck me as a pleasant, serious and hardworking lady when I last saw her at the Singapore Open 2004.
Yeah, I wish her all the success in the incoming events. Still remember how disappointed she was after the match against Zhang Ning in SO'04. And how rude the "mainland people" treated her in that event.
Hi Loh =) I got this info on TV =p From her coach fabrice vallet, and he said also that actually they want to put a lot of money on her. Hum ... If i remember if you want to be a french citizen you have to speak a little french ... but i'm not sure
that's true, but it is also true that the Chinese team provides food, room and training to the players. to me that is not too bad a deal. perhaps it is more advantageous to the ones who never wins anything and less so for the ones who always does. but that is another topic of discussion altogether.
Thanks Syaoran for the info. I am still surprised that China offered her such incentives. Btw, in which language do you converse with Pi - a little French and English combined? Or do you speak Mandarin?
But probably the ones who never wins won't enjoy these benefits very long before being kicked out of the national team because there are so many good players waiting to take their spots.
Well, it also depends if players can keep the sponsorship money. That's where the real big money is. And of course, there's the cost of living to consider, which in China is much lower than in France. So maybe you're right about the Chinese players having the better deal. But it's still the question if Pi can return to China if she has become a French citizen. Yao Yie and Mia Audina, for instance, have become Dutch citizens and it would be most unlikely that they can go back and play for their countries of origin.
In France too, she has food, room and training provided by the federation, ans as far as I know she keeps all the prize money and also plays for a danish club in the danish interclub champs, which she is paid for too... So yes, it is very lucrative for her to play in Europe... Also, if she were to go back to China, she would need to wait for THREE years before representing China in any IBF event (World Champs, Asia Champs, Thomas/Uber/Sudirman Cups, Olympics). I suppose that's why China want her back NOW, so she can represent China in Beijing Olympics in three years time...
The first time we met we spoke in english and after in french =p she has improved very quickly =)) About china wanted to "regain" Hongyan , they said also, she will play for china but she won't participate at the olympics or world championships anymore. Only representing china in some 6* or 5* stars tournaments.
There hasn't been any official news either way as far as I know... I think her playing for China again is quite unlikely...
Me too, i dont think LYB could swallow his pride that much! Syaorans' post made it sound like it had happened! you should be a tabloid journalist sayaoran!