Not surprising really. We have more or less realized that after watching their most recent match in Indonesia Masters. Who could be a tougher enemy than your own allies who know all your weaknesses With no coach to guide, the difficulty level will be much higher too. Be kind to your friends who know your secrets or you'll be sorry one day
Not surprised tbh, we already see that in indonesia masters. they can actually neutralize kevin at the front court. with that skillset I'm actually surprised that fajar/rian have only won very few titles so far.
It's one thing to beat your teammates, it's another thing to beat different teams. One thing is the psychological aspect when they are playing minions, they are the absolute underdog so they don't feel the pressure at all. If they lost, so be it, no one will blame them. But if they won, it's huge success and they will be the new "champion" from INA teams. Going to the next match : They have beaten minions, without a doubt all the pressures and the expectations are on them now. Can they deliver and beat the opponents they are facing? And then the next one and the final one until they won the title? It's not as easy as it sounds.
Simply not many pairs can win many titles.. Even Li/Liu only won 3SS titles plus a few bac that minions didnt participate..especially the WTF where it takes a sick gideon for LiLiu to win. That was a desperate stuff. So the best way to win titles off minions are through WC..
Well, i've always thought that minions rival from the most tough to the least one would be like this... 1. Han/Zhou >> the fact that this pair still lead the head to head win stats explains everything. They are the most dangerous threat for minions so far. . 2. Li/Liu >> Despite this pair still lost h2h by a wide margin, they are still WR #2. and they can perform really well in major events..Hence, they are another pair to watch out for. 3. Kam/Son, Faj/Ri, He/Tan, Zhang/ Liu >>> tied Other than that, there isn’t any other pair that can pose a threat.
I have always thought that minions most threatening pair would be Liu/Zhang. Who knows what they can do when LC finally steps up ( I mean really, really, really steps up consistently). Zhang Nan is more than smart enough to deal with Kevin. Fajar/Rian are close, because they are teammates and they practice together everyday. As other pairs, they could all be a threat depending on the playing condition and the players condition.
Oh no... @yuquall You've had a hard choice at next month All England since the Minions will face Zhang Nan/Liu Cheng in the very early round. If Minions go through, the Minions probably will meet the scratch pair Lee Yang/Wang Chi-Lin or Bodin Isara/Maneepong Jongjit at R2. And again, Fajar/Rian will be on their way through final stage. If both pair (Minions & Fajar/Rian) manage to reach semifinal, then the expected match will happen for the first time in the foreign venue. All INA MD pairs are in the top half except Hendra/Ahsan in the bottom half to become lonely pair from INA.
The coach said that there's no pressure for minions to win the all england again, though he still believe that they could win it again this year. they have 1 week to rest after djarum superliga next week.
Really? So whose pressure might it be win the All England this time? But I think the minions themselves want to win AE again, so they will try to win it all they can. There was no target in Malaysia Masters and they still performed quite well. Good luck to them.
It's very different to play someone you're very familiar with through hours upon hours of training and sparring, and to beat someone unfamiliar. Even meeting an opponent only a few times can drastically change things - you can feel out each other more, spot weaknesses, get better at neutralizing/countering strengths....that goes doubly for peculiar players who do some things very differently which you'll not be used to normally (for example smashing at unexpected angles, using an unexpected rotation/formation,....), not that I'd count the minions as such (they've been on the tour too long for anyone to be surprised by Marcus' sometimes surprising defense). Personally I like seeing matches with no coaching between players on a roughly equal level - allows you to really see how mentally stable and tactically shrewd they are, and how much influence the coaches have. Chen Long used to be a prime example around the 2012 Olympics, where he had been coached into an almost perfect counter to LCW, but LD ate him for breakfast with almost no effort.
So they are not going to defend their title there this year. Kind of having mixed feelings about this, a part of me disappointed they are throwing a chance of 4 consecutive titles, another part of me a bit relieved that they are being selective to play in less tournaments before the Olympics qualification.
I don't know, I don't actually keep a note of their agenda hehe me too, but anyway a hattrick is already an achievement in itself
So minions are not going to play in India Open Super 500 this year. No idea why, since they aren't listed in the INA team for TYKC (Fajar/Alfian will be there). I have made a projection of what minions timetable could be in 2019 (12 Super 500+ per year as top committed pair) : *(1) Malaysia Masters Super 500 *(2) Indonesia Masters Super 500 (3) All England Open Super 1000; 06-10 March (4) Malaysia Open Super 750; 02-07 April (?) Singapore Open Super 500; 09-14 April - Badminton Asia Championships (Individual); 23-28 April Olympics qualification starting : - Sudirman Cup (Mixed Team); 19-26 May (5) Indonesia Open Super 1000; 16-21 July (6) Japan Open Super 750; 23-28 July - World Championships (Individual); 19-25 August (7) China Open Super 1000; 17-22 Sept (8) Korea Open Super 500; 24-29 Sept (9) Denmark Open Super 750; 15-20 Oct (10) French Open Super 750; 22-27 Oct (11) Fuzhou China Open Super 750; 05-10 Nov (12) Hong Kong Open Super 500; 12-17 Nov - W.T.F; 11-15 Dec *: competed. I assume a few things when I made this list : - minions will try to defend their title in Hong Kong this year, and play in Korea Open instead of India Open or Singapore Open because the Olympics qualification won't start before 29 April 2019, so I marked Singapore Open as (?) - minions are included in Sudirman Cup team - minions will again qualify for WTF this year. I will leave what W.T.F 2019 stands for after the qualifiers and results come up later in Dec
