i think cai yun has improved much in court craft, front court drives in addition to his deadly skills at the net and supreme deceptive shots. fu haifeng had improved considerably in his defense, shot-placing and footwork in addition to his cannon-like smashes. they are the best men's doubles combination in the world right now. only de kimchies were comparable but look at the way they were utterly destroyed. koo kk is just a fat gremlin with fancy shots that are wasteful and non-productive. boon heong deserves another partner to achieve success. markis kido/hendra setiawan - they will be dangerous once they get into shape. danes? they are just tier2.
in my opinion, judging from how cy/fhf played in the semi and finals, i'd say fhf has improved his defenses tremendously. (or perhaps overcame some mental blocks in the past) there were some unbelievable shots that he retrieved that he would not have been able to in the past. there was 1 smash return (smash by jjs) by fhf that he just with a flick of his wrist and just dropped the fast shuttle cross court over the net which lyd (who was covering the front) could not even touch. fhf made that shot look rediculously easy but we all know how difficult it is to retrieve any one of these top level MD players' smashes. i am very curious to follow fhf in his next few tournaments to see whether this wk was his stars in alignment or really he has improved.
I have to disagree. Badminton is far more taxing physically than tennis. The short but constant movement, the smashes, and long 20+ strokes volley are common in badminton. Plus, there is no break between points. For tennis, there are a lot of running, but they rarely smash, and each point I guess is like 4 to 6 strokes. Plus plenty of time for second serve, go to the towel, and between games. Second, at least for tennis coverage in US, I have heard many time from TV commentators that players are physically tired after winning long 5 set matches. Yes, tennis guys are tired too. Back to badminton, I am for badminton to slow down the game to give players more break.
Every games has its toughness. Rackets are heavy in tennis. Anyway, lets focus on fhf/cy. See how they fares. 1st round should be a cracker.
Cai/Fu really impressed me at this Singapore Open. I have dismissed them as being one-dimensional before, when their game plan was simply to overpower and overspeed (?) their opponent. That kind of game will wear them out quickly. (The equivalent in tennis would be Nadal.) But now that they're older, they have managed to transition their game to a less physically-taxing one. It is not a huge change, don't get me wrong. Speed and power still matter a lot in MD. But their game is slowly and subtlely transitioning to become those of wily old men (ever played with those sort?).
If I'm not mistaken, a badminton player has to cover the court much faster and more since it is a game of volley. Although the tennis court is about 2 1/2 times the size of the badminton court, the ball is bigger and is allowed to bounce once before the player hits it. In badminton too, because of a greater variety of strokes than tennis, from the very delicate net drops to the fast overhead clears and a much faster smash (including the jumpsmash), the player is made to return and play the shot at very demanding and awkward positions. And as there are numerous "towelling" breaks besides the official ones, more rest time is given to tennis players. Not only that, badminton matches can last for more than an hour!
Actually, there have been studies (and lol, I can't be bothered to find them as well - sorry) that showed that badminton players are one of the most physically fit athletes in all of the Olympic sports. Even Gillian Clark has commented on this.
