Personally, I think they play XD as warm-up event for their main events in MD and WD. Not much expectation in XD. Unfortunately, this tourney is the rare tourney whereby they manage to progress to R16 while losing in R32 in their main events. Overall, they only managed to progress to R16 or QF in 3 other events (China Masters SS, Japan SS, China SSP, and INA GPG).
Rizki plays WD with Pia and she isn't the one who cover the net perfectly. Too bad, I think Gideon surely needs someone who can put him in a better position to punch everything from the backside.
Unfortunately, there are very few good woman playmaker apart from Liliyana Natsir. Only Vita Marissa perhaps. That's why Praveen Jordan is able to break into the top 10 and win several GP/GPG tourneys with Vita last year. I am personally skeptical of his new partnership with Debby Susanto as I rate Vita much much better compared to Debby.
Simon Santoso is through to the QF. He will face either Lee Dong Kuen or Gao Huan for a place in the last 4.
If Simon is to reach the SF, I will consider this tourney a successful one for him and hopefully he doesn't need to play qualifying rounds in the home event Indonesia Open SSP in June. If he can reach the Final (by beating probably Gao Huan and Du Pengyu), I will consider it to be a very successful one for him. The ranking pts will be even greater than winning another GPG title.
Yes, those are very convincing scores against a difficult opponent (incidentally, if Takahashi had switched places with Mitani earlier, I think she could've beaten LXR). Ratchanok looks like she means business at this tournament, and I think she may finally overcome her losing streak against WYH. Of course, WYH will have to progress far enough to meet her, and that may not happen what with Sindhu looming in the distance. If Sindhu meets Ratchanok, the latter will be grateful for Sindhu will most certainly be toast.
boring to see hayom lose by unseeded player easily.. he doesnt develop, he should be kicked out of pelatnas :crying:
Yes, Vita sure is a better player than Debby (I still left brokenheart how she lose her SF Olympic 2008 and left empty handed), eventhough she's older. From some matches I watch Debby playing, she's not consistent enough to remember her position on court. And not to say her stamina is questioning too. Well, all pelatnas player have this stamina issues actually, lol. Good win by Simon Santoso. I hope he gain some ranking points here. Too sad to see him climbing from qualification rounds.
Unfortunately, Prannoy could not produce the same form which he had yesterday and all of a sudden too many unforced errors and totally lost his confidence in the second half of the decider.
Looks like he will make it to the semis by beating Hun Yu in quarters. Not able to recall correctly, but I think he has beaten him before. They'd know each other strenghts and weakness' because of IBL.
