Chen Qingchen ( 陈清晨 )

Solely a thread for Chen Qingchen even though she's a doubles player in XD and WD. Very good prognosticative words. True, still early to be sure who will be her partners in XD and WD to share and bask in the glory together.

 

It should also be said that CQC is the most successful player in the history of world junior championships with a total of 8 gold medals (team event included). That's amazing!

 

She is already a world champion after winning the 2016 Uber Cup.

 

Way to go. They are both barely 19 years old, just graduated from the junior level. Phenomenal.

 

Very promising indeed!

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Side-question:
I have always regarded female athletes to peak earlier than male ones. I know there's physical evidence to this, as they develop earlier and decay a bit earlier, but I also think there's a mental and cultural side to it as well.

I so many sports, you have younger top female players than you do male ones.

Having a look at an example all Chinese people know very well, is gymnastics. But in all sorts of games, tennis, etc.

I'm also seeing it in badminton, but I don't know how much the "difference" is between men and women?

Anyone of you have an oppinion on this?

Here we're talking about very young female player breaking through - but is it so unique? (I must admit, that I'm NOT really too much into the detail of women's badminton, except some of them play well and looks pretty)

 

A force to be reckoned in both XD and WD. Adding another SS title by the age of 19.

 

The fact that women are more likely to retire earlier likely has some impact on opportunities for younger female players but some women retire early because they played at such a high level from a young age so that is a chicken and egg scenario of a sort. There may be other factors.

As for uniqueness, what comes to mind is that Chen is only the second youngest winner of a Superseries doubles title. The youngest, Lee Yong Dae, is the unique one.

Overall, the gender difference in age of success is far more pronounced in WS than in any other discipline and MS is the exception in the other direction. We all know how many teenagers have won major WS titles but the biggest MS titles to go to teenagers since Lin Dan won the Denmark Open in 2003 are GP wins to Chen Yuekun and Wang Tzu Wei. As for doubles, the young men have held their own more, in a way. But of the 9 SS doubles titles to male teenagers (the number is only 8 for female teens), 5 were won by Lee Yong Dae and 3 by Tan Boon Heong. If you count GP and up since 2007, male teenagers have 26 MD and 22 XD titles and females have 37 WD titles and 17 XD titles. The youngest ever winner of a World Championship title is Jang Hye Ock (18) in WD but the youngest ever Olympic gold medallist is Lee Yong Dae (19) in mixed.

Chen Qingchen is the youngest ever woman to win a Superseries title in WD and now in XD, where she is the first female teenager to do so. She's not the youngest to win a GPG title. That was Narissapat Lam at the 2012 Thai Open. However, some of Chen's titles have come with partners who are also quite young, unlike the cases of Jang, Lee, Tan, or Lam so I would say we are looking at Chen being a real exception to the rule.

 

Personally, I'm not too much into or overly impressed by who is the youngest kind of thing. To me, a couple years older to achieve similar exceptional results is fine, doesn't make much difference. What's more important is how they perform later in life as they mature to be the best in the world.

Besides, it's a known fact that most child prodigies fail to live up to their promise as they age, and even for the few who do, they tend to burn out earlier than normal. It's extremely rare for any child prodigies to stay at or near the top for longer than half of an average span of a standard athlete's career, say, about 12 years (maybe closer to 10 but not longer than 15 in the great majority of cases, I supposed) for badminton.

In fact, I'm more impressed by veterans who become evergreens that continue to maintain near their best level until well into the tail end of their careers at an advanced age, usually several years longer than most normal players. Two remarkably notable examples are Peter Gade and Lee Hyun Il, also Zhang Ning in recent decade.

Similarly, I'm also very impressed by late bloomers who suddenly burst onto the world scene at an age where most are going downhill and continue to perform at that high level far beyond the norm well into their old age in badminton terms. For the moment, I have in mind such late bloomers as Hu Yun and Sho Sasaki, and, I believe, Wei Nan would soon join their ranks.

For the child prodigies, fewer of them impressed me as much. In recent times, we've Taufik Hidayat and Mia Audina, at the moment, Intanon Ratchanok. And I'm waiting to see how He Bingjiao , Akane Yamaguchi and,possibly, Goh Jin Wei, will fare in this respect.

The main reason why I tend to favour much older players, evergreens and late bloomers is because I lay greater emphasis on experience and steadiness which naturally comes with age and maturity, not age alone. Very young players, specifically child prodigies , often burst onto the world stage in spectacular fashion, stirring our imagination with their brilliance and splendour as to blow us away. But more often than not, when it comes to the crunch, they can when we least expected it, just as abruptly comes crashing down to earth. I mean their youthful exuberance, over-zealousness and even over-estimation of themselves cannot hide their lack of depth, inevitable knowledge gaps and want of steadfastness in character although many of them may appear to be mature for their age.

In other words, instability, unpredictability, inconsistency,or being temperamental (even occasional recklessness) are traits that commonly characterize teenagers with very few exceptions, I'm afraid. I'm not saying much older players don't exhibit similar attributes, just that I expect them to be much less so, esp for those above 30. A sign of maturity is to be more sensible, wiser, and self-restrained as to be able to translate their knowledge and experience into becoming more stable and consistent, hopefully. My two cents.

 

she's probably the most expressive Chinese player! love that!

 

Yes this girl is indeed a very good XD and WD player. She really has the potential to go far. Keep up the good job.

 

and there is no photo of her in this thread!

 

I'd say Viktor Axelson fall under the prodigy group of players, he's been 1 step shy of making a big splash. Another player who's been out of the spot light is Kento Momota, but in my mind fall under the prodigy group.

The post 2016 environment has seen plenty of veterans retiring and more to come (LCW/LD). The following months has showed us what the future badminton scene will look like with new champions emerging Shi Yu Qi, and He Bing Jiao. 2017 will be an exciting year to come, as new players take the stage and challenge the previous golden age of badminton.

Side note, while Chen Qing Chen is exceptional, her partners can't be overlooked. Zheng Si Wei and Jia Yi Fan are both exceptional. Their abilities are enabling CQC to attack relentlessly at the net.

What interests me is how the two pairs will fair when the opponents get more experience against them and work out strategies. Double pairs often disrupt the status quo in spectacular fashion, but maintaining top form is often difficult. Both combinations (CQC/JYF+CQC/ZSW) rely on frantic attacking play, and I don't believe they can keep that play style up in the long run. I'm intrigued by how their style mature.

 

There's many overseas Chinese but not many (or none?) mainlanders in BC (as they have their own forum ) so you won't see a lot of fanfare here. But I recalled reading an article about the rise of these rising young guns somewhere.

 

She can be the new Gao Ling or Ge Fei....She seems enjoying badminton so much...congrats for her...By the way is she a Hakka? She was born in Xingning Guangdong..