Lee Yong Dae has a finger injury and has been out for several weeks. notice he's not been at the last 2 SS? and i won't say Tracey Hallam will destroy Wong Mew, i'd say they'd have an even chance. Tracey kinda plods around a lot, with not much fitness, whereas Wong is probably fitter.
i don't think so. Korea MD are pretty strong, and as for why Lee Hyun Il isn't there. he quit in january. now he's back, but too late for the Cup
Pivotal match between Hirose and Yao. The tie hangs in the balance especially after Sato was defeated by Eric Pang. The MD was won by Japan as expected. Japan still favourites as they are favoured to win both WD and XD.
Yeah but the question is will they play the matches in that order? Koreans are known to do well in team tournaments (e.g. 2006 Asian Games, 2005 Surdiman Cup, 2006 Uber Cup, and reasonably well in the 2006 Thomas Cup). Even so, MD is not guaranteed because the top two Korean pairs are pretty consistent this year, each wining gold medals and silver medals at the 2007 Korean Open & 2007 German Open and reaching the semi-finals in the other tournaments. I don't remember Markis Kidho (or is it Kido?) & Hendra Setiawan advancing to the semi-finals at all this year. And let's not even start discussing how miserably the pairing of Luluk & Alvent failed this year as well as last year (the only tournament they did well was reaching the 2006 Doha Asian Games). Indonesia's current MD pairs are no where as close to the older pairs (Sigit & Candra, Tony & Halim, Tony & Candra) in terms of consistency. And in mixed, although the Indonesian pair have a slight advantage, the Korean mixed are no pushed over. For WD & WS, Koreans are stronger so it's almost a sure win.
While Cheng lost to Xu, unknown Taiwanese men deliver the goods, getting both points in the men's department. Chinese Taipei now favourites to win this tie, as they are superior in the WD.
As Singapore is expected to steamroll over Sweden, they can mix their lineup around and give everyone a good warmup. Both Kendrick and Ronald get a feel of the courts, and they will both get valuable ranking points too (you only need to play once in a team event to get ranking points, so when Ronald is fielded against more fancied opponents, he will also get points, win or lose).
I think the proper word to be used here is "not likely" instead of "impossible". "Not likely" means it can still happen but chances are low whereas "impossible" means it will never happen at all (0% chance of happening as what hcyong said) just like sunrise from the west. Never use "impossible" in your predictions.
The way things turned out today, Chinese Taipei will pose a big threat to Singapore for Div 2 Group A supremacy. Already, huge favourites in WS and WD, they just need one more point elsewhere.
Meanwhile if Japan beats Nederlands today, they would have already beaten their biggest foe in Group B. Poland will pose less of a threat, even though an upset is still remotely possible.
sorry, what are the promotion/relegation rules again between the divisions? 1 up and 1 down each time?
yes. the team that come first in the group gets promoted. the team that come last gets demoted. only the top group are eligible to win the Sudirman Cup.
There's live scoring here: http://www.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/livescore.aspx?id=15280 Oh come on NZ... I think Daniel Shirley is getting too old for this .
