I would have guessed Ko Sung Hyun or Lee Yong Dae as 2nd, first person in purple looked like Kim Sa Rang to me
ksh never came to mind. lyd did but the lips are more like ctc. they both played victor rackets but lyd jumped to yy sooner then the chinese taipei team did. true, haha! would still like to know which name hendra said for the drawing after the lee chong-wei drawing...
there was this video with the correct answers: 1. Srikanth Kidambi 2. Lee Yong Dae ("Opa" with hearts was the give away) 3. Praveen Jordan 4. Taufik Hidayat 5. An Se Young 6. LCW 7. Marcus Fernaldi Gideon (whaaatt??) 8. Saina Nehwal 9. Kento Momota
Certainly an argument could be made for that. It's not as if there's a clear formula where you just put in the medals and tournament finishes and it gives you a score - especially hard in doubles, because you have to take partners into account as well. Honestly, I'd personally put him in the Top3, but I'm not quite sure if I would rank him ahead of FHF even then. Others will, I'm sure. Me, I'd consider that extra OG silver and sustained success enough to keep him ahead, if barely. It's a tall order though, especially the OG...that's a year from now, and they're not getting younger
he's the best ever for me already. fu is in my top 3 too, but he had cai yun and zhang nan as his partner, while hendra stuck with an overweight kido for years.
See, that's exactly the sort of subjective judgement I mean. I don't weigh it quite like that myself, because he didn't achieve much once Kido really let himself go (post Olympics), but it is a valid argument for sure. Zhang hasn't had huge success in MD with other partners, so I wouldn't say he pulled Fu through or anything like that, and Ahsan certainly is a competent partner and not the balls-and-chain Kido developed into (whether you want to ascribe Ahsan's rapid and significant improvement to Setiawan's or the coaches' influence is another debatable topic).
I would say Hendra is the most complete MD player ever. Not the most entertainer like Kevin, but the silent killer that he is. The way he won Olympic beating Cai/Fu in Beijing. How he won AG beating 2 koreans in Incheon in SF/F. Cai/Fu missed the AsianGames. or Fu, for that matter. cant win at home at GZ10, too bad.
His horrendous performance in rio 2016 is the reason why I wouldn't put him as the best ever (yet). but if he can achieve gold in tokyo next year, maybe I'll put him above FHF.
Rankireddy/shetty just withdrawn from the WC, the hardest opponent for them to go the SF is probably the danes kim/rasmussen, a pair that haven't beat them in the last 5 meetings. seems like a guaranteed medal for them. if minions somehow lost before the SF (I hope not), then it seems like the badminton God really want hendra to get his 4th gold at the WC
Seems like the perfect chance to go out in the first round with a desastrous performance, then ('16 OG was the same situation)
What are you talking about.. in OG, they were drawn against EndoKawa and CHaiHong, they were the top 8 pairs in the world at that time (this is actually not fair and very unlucky that they get 2 pairs from 5-8th seed). Why werent they drawn against the 13th and 14th seeds like FuZhang did. Anyway, I hope AhsanHendra win the WC. Its always Minions that win SS, its just a little fairer that AhsanHendra that won WC. Its just a title though, so its not all that fair , just a little fairer. It was like they reach the final in IO and JO playing tougher opponents yet they get rank 2nd only. I know most of the players are hoping Minions get injured or something so i just hope they stay healthy.
You just said that non Asian pairs should win WC. Make up your mind There is no fair or unfair in life. Honestly I think it's unfair for Ahsan/Hendra to win WC this year when they already have 2 gold medals in their pocket and AE title this year.
so did Minions who had 2 AE titles the years before and 20+SS. and they still won AsianGames, which is the biggest of them all. Had it not been played at Indonesia, dont think they will have won it.