I'm really shocked...he was very unconfident at the end of that second set and clearly struggled with all his normaly surefire shots.
I am not trying to give any excuses here. No more excuses from em or any complain from me. It is already morning here at my place and I already started working at my workplace now. Then the poor Lee Chong Wei match just ended. Managed to catch a glimpse of his live matches. I thought his last match played today would have ended long ago. But it didn't. Thus the timing of the match dragging into late midnight England time and playing his last match has definitely taken a toll on his result. I am not a Malaysian and I am not here ho side Lee Chong Wei. But then poor schedule like this has certainly taken a toll on his result. I just imagine if Lee Chong Wei match is the first match of the day played at court 1 at 9 am England time. Will I be seeing the same result. Definitely not. Plus the jetlag issue too due to different timing between Asia and Europe time. No more excuses here hut I must say Lee Chong Wei is just another victim of the poor schedule. His match is supposed to start at 7. 20 pm England time but it became midnight England time. Too bad.
But I assume that's what you get when your game is scheduled so late at night...it's almost 7 in the morning in Malaysia right now. Bad custom of organisers to try to keep the spectators in the hall by saving the star-players for last, when the schedule is really far to tight and delays are inevitable...
Lee's opponent Praneeth is also from Asia time zone and played the same hour as Lee. So no complains there.
So I guess this serves as a warning to the organisers and bwf as well. If you like to schedule the good players match as the last match and in the end the player played late midnight matches don't blame your old age player for not performing at all. This is also my own personal experience. A few times I had to play late midnight matches with my friends because we played immediately after work and I always off work late. Imagine I play at 11.30 midnight for a few times and the outcome was totally extremely bad. I lost all the matches that I played at late midnight with my friends and I just won't win it. See this is the outcome. I am nor giving excuses for myself but then those late midnight matches I felt so tired no energy left to play. Plus I am young too. Imagine this is an old player what can we expect? So bwf you really need to take note of this poor scheduling of matches.
I understand the organisers good intention of keeping his matches last all the time so as to keep the spectators at the court watching all his matches live too at the stadium. But now due to this kind of poor schedule, this old player Lee Chong Wei won't be able to play anymore after this and hence the organisers lose out on the end. I am not giving excuses for Lee Chong Wei. I am not even a Malaysian. Young players it is okay but old age players not okay. Look at his age. So old still playing but play the last match.
Yes, you are right. Praneeth clearly dealed better with the timeshift and kept calm during crucial stages of the game, so it was a deserved win for him. I'm just sad to see Lee Chong Wei struggling to find his rhythm from the start of the match, as it was evident he was far from his usual standard. He could have made his 4th AE title this week, but no sense in arguing about that now
Not saying it affected them one way or the other, but there is no such thing as a universal "Asia time zone". There can be as much as 10 (yeah, 10) hours difference between places in Asia, so it's just a ridiculous notion. Between Hyderabad (where I guess Praneeth resides) and Malaysia there is 2.5 hours difference unless I'm mistaken. Again, not saying one way or the other, just debunking the notion that the whole of Asia is suddenly a single time zone. 2.5 hours might not sound like much, but in reality it's the difference between starting a match at 9:30 and at midnight. In this particular case the match started at around 6 in LCW's local time and 3:30 in Praneeth's, so less than ideal for both players.
LCW played well. Not perhaps in-humanely well, but well. Praneeth deserved the win. He didn't loose his control when he was down in game two. Everyone in the crowd was just waiting for him to win G2 and get on and finish the inevitable. But Praneeth had other plans. The crowd really gave him his due with lots of applause. The wonderful thing about sport is the prospect of the unexpected.
Even though I'm gutted about LCW's loss, your comment made me chuckle That new Duora really looks unimpressive.
This seems like the new LCW, win tourneys in a row then go out in first round. Just hard to understand.
Actually all the players are like that, they have periods when they win a lot, then first round exit. It is just that LCW used to be an exception, performing at top-level all year around. No longer the case it seems.
Sorry to break it to you guys, but Lee Chong Wei vs. Praneeth finished at 22.40 local time, not even close to midnight. Shouldn't be a problem for him to perform at this time. Lots of top players in many sports has to plat these hours. Spanish football is a good example with matches often starting at 21 and finishing around 23. If LCW struggles with jetlag he should simply arrive to England earlier, but I'm sure he won't use such a bad excuse for losing. He will hopefully just credit Praneeth on being the better player today.
Completely agree with you. No excuses please... In football as you said and more especially in Tennis players deal perfectly well with hour difference when they play in Asia. They also sometimes start matches at 10/11 pm and continue playing for hours. The players (and their team) are the ones who have to adapt, certainly not the organizers or the sport, this is what it takes to be an international athlete.. Also, the match finished at 10:45 which is actually very reasonable for a competition of this caliber. Be it as it may, I'm still very sad LCW is out of the competition, lack of self-belief in the end is what made the difference in my opinion, not the time of the match
Some very exciting matches tomorrow!!! Akane YAMAGUCHI v. Ratchanok is going to be interesting. Since Akane is 4-3 against Ratchanok and won their encounter in last October in a very convincing way (21-8 / 21-17) Saina - Busanan could be good too, since their last match took 70 minutes. Axelsen - SWH and Vitthingus - Praneeth are good ones too
