...to be filled with many future years of frustration. the easiest ones to fix are #1 & #5. #1: in no way has the current rule benefited anyone: not the players, not bwf, not the fans, nor the sport. has more injuries, lack of effort and early round withdrawals made things better for either parties? there is no logical case to be made for minimum participation in an individual sport. there are no minimums in tennis. a player will naturally plot their own strategy to maintain their ranking advantage for seeding purposes and financial gain, so let them. the best players will still play the majority of the highest grade tournaments. if bwf wants to demand a minimum # of appearances they should subsidize the cost of travel and guarantee a minimum payout. increasing prize money is not an incentive in this case because bwf has forced the entire risk of physical strain and injury upon the player. if/when a player gets injured or bails after 1 rally in the 1st round or doesn't go all out in order to avoid injury how has that benefited anyone? #5: this just shows how lazy and unprofessional bwf is. do they really care about athlete health? software can be written to solve it. hell, it probably already exists. the rest, #'s 2, 3, 4 & 6 are all about money... and for some reason nobody @ bwf knows how to, or is willing to, fix that. the rules behind #1 & #3 have resulted in a blatantly oppressive environment overhanging badminton. but hey, what can you do... there's not enough money available in the sport for an athlete to buy/earn their way out of it. hmmm... well i guess all 6 are about money.
The higher the profile of badminton and the more cash incentive there is, the less no.1 is needed. I don’t think number one is needed anymore. However, how does one deal with ‘tactical’ withdrawals where the member association might abuse the system ? Interesting one about the money going to players directly. At the moment, all registration has to go through the national associations. I can’t see the Asian countries acceding to this. Probably we would need five times the prize money plus a greater number of large ticket sponsors that can support players being independent.
it was never needed in the first place. the past, including the superseries era, did just fine without it. most importantly, with the rule in place, bwf should be able to see that nothing improved. you saw it 2019. and who could blame them? get rid of the commitment requirement and you automatically eliminate the ugly withdrawal/tanking tactics. for wt 100 and above the tournament organizer is REQUIRED to send the prize money to bwf within 30 days of the end of tournament. then bwf sends it to the member association. then who knows how long it takes the association to actually pay the players. in the lower grade tournaments you can hand the cash directly to the player. however, that has nothing to do with the player/federation split. ie. the chinese players would still give cba their share. this wouldn't apply to axelsen because denmark runs differently than asian teams, so i can see why he views who receives the money directly is important to him. some of the lower tournaments have been known to take the maximum time to pay the players, even screwing them all together. even if the prize money were increased 5x bwf would still have to lift the tournament registration rule. without tv what's in it for the large ticket sponsors?
Congratulations to Axelsen for his All England championship win. Just like Axelsen is Momota's whipping boy, CTC is Axelsen's whipping boy. This win puts Axelsen's H2H against CTC as 10-2. It's a matter of style and anticipation that makes the difference for Axelsen when he plays CTC, just as style and anticipation affects Axelsen against Momota. Momota has the right style of play and Axelsen just can't anticipate Momota. Against CTC however, CTC's style fits Axelsen and Axelsen doesn't have too much trouble reading CTC. At a few points in the game, when Axelsen lifted to the back court of CTC, I could see Axelsen cheat and move towards the net, as if Axelsen knew CTC was going to return to the net. And Axelsen was right, more often than not. Against Momota, Axelsen simply cannot read Momota. Of course, Momota is more consistent than CTC, which makes it harder. I also think CTC has difficulty in reading Axelsen's game. Momota has no difficulty in reading Axelsen's game. Congratulations to Axelsen. Just like the 2017 WC, when Momota was not available to play, Axelsen takes advantage of Momota's absence. A well deserved victory for Axelsen.
So good to see him back on top. And that with a game that is very, very close to his absolute best. The semi-final against LZJ was one of the most entertaining MS matches that I’ve seen in a while. I sincerely hope that those two will meet many more times in the future. But I can’t help thinking - it’s so weird, isn’t it? As if the presence of Kento Momota alone is able to drain energy his and his will to succeed somehow. I wonder if he wears underwear made of Kryptonite?!
It's simple. Kento Momota is far superior to Viktor Axelsen. No kryptonite needed. VA only wins big tournaments when the best player in the world, KM, is unable to participate.
Congrats to Vicky Axelsen <Campeon del Inglaterra> Chou Tien Chen wanted none of that steep smash and lost deservedly.
You didn't get my point, or just didn't want to. What I wanted to say is, that Viktor plays differently (better!) when Momota is not in the proximity of the court or the venue. As if the sole knowledge of having to face him on court at some point would drag him down mentally. At least I feel like we've seen a different Viktor on court the past week, just looking at his body language. That Viktor has nothing in his arsenal to seriously challenge Momota at this point in time is rather obvious looking at their H2H.
I don't agree with this premise. Generally, VA is beating most other players when healthy. He went through some bad injuries last year. He's healthy now and he played well. But saying that he plays better just because KM is not "in proximity" is just incorrect.
Vik had bad form/injured when mo around and mo got ban/ injured when vik at his best. Just like triangle in md or marin/chen L share the same fate around 2014-2017. Its just some coincidence we noticed vik:save...lin dan mo: why did you say that name?
I say it's still too early to pass any final judgment, expect many more matches between Viktor and Momota going forward. The two are peers, less than a year apart, and they are not done with each other yet, far from it. Let the future tell.
Corona lockdown baby number one is confirmed. Congrats and all the best for Viktor and his girlfriend... and the baby of course...
Wow congratulations to him! Didn't see that one coming. It will change his character and stance on life quite a bit. I see it as a positive asset for his badminton career given his personality.