What do you expect from 18 yo and 33 yo players ? Winning all the time ? Above average consistency ?
LCW starts to show consistency after he was 23 yo or something. I think, before defeating CL in China Open 2011/12, Jan O is a yoyo player. there are more out there...
LCW's consistency is hard to match. No other player even come close. Comparing other players to LCW is not really fair, to be honest, CL has been pretty consistent over the years. How long he has been World NO 2? That says a lot. Even the LD's ranking was going up and down over the years. As Gill Clark rightly says, CL has been World NO 1 for 75 weeks. That's a record already. Granted, he is kind of being given a gift by LCW's suspension.
Now, it is the right time to comment on the upcoming seeding of Rio Olympics for Men's Singles. Basically, the top two seed is being sealed. LCW takes the top seed and CL takes the second seed. In other words, LCW would remain World NO 1 at least until 2016 Summer Olympics.
We all know LCW took the top rank when he won his record 43rd Superseries titles or 6th Indonesia Open titles or 11 SSP titles. LCW was supposed to play in Australia Open to further consolidate his position. But as a precaution, he withdrew from Australia Open due to minor injury. The question remains, did CL can possibly retake top rank and top seed of 2016 Olympics? The answer is actually yes.
As LCW said he wouldn't play in Chinese Taipei Open GPG despite having put his name on it, should CL take both Australia Open SS and Chinese Taipei Open GPG, CL could get the ranking points of 92193.9444, surpassing LCW's ranking points of 91773.4798. However, his loss at the quarterfinal stage at Australia Open is costly, dashing any hope of regaining the top rank and top seed of Olympic Games. As it stands, if CL does not play Chinese Taipei Open GPG, his ranking points would be 86983.9444; if he does win Chinese Taipei Open GPG, his ranking points would be 88943.9444. Either way, he would remain World NO 2. The first World Ranking Tournament counted towards the World Ranking of the July 21, 2016 is BWF World Championships 2015.