No wonder Huang Yuxiang is still around in the national team while Qiao Bin is out, probably relegated to the provinces. Yes, Chen Xiaoxin's overcoming Intanon Ratchanok whose deceptive game used to trouble her is a remarkable achievement, esp coming after the two previous weeks R1 exits by retirement at the Spain and German Opens respectively. A second stringer among CHN WS, who had some famous scalps under her belt , she now seems poised for a breakout, I hope. Next round at the All England, she'll up against her senior compatriot Li Xuerui. Let's see which of these two would-be Olympians would progress further. As for the two CHN doubles encouraging performance these two weeks, namely WD Du Yue/Li Yinhui winning the german Open last week and MD Zhang Nan/Liu Cheng beating the Minions yesterday at the AE, I may attribute it partly to the Fu Haifeng factor as he has been specially roped in to assist in training the national doubles team in preparation for the Tokyo Olympics. I also supposed that all those CHN doubles players vying for qualification to Tokyo 2020 will stop doing double duty once the OG cycle starts in end April as made known, a condition, by Zhang Jun earlier.
Wow. Li Xiang beat liu liang in straight sets in the German Junior. LL not well or a deserved victory.
I can only say all junior players have consistency issue. Hopefully they get better as they gain experience and mature.
In winning the Italian and Dutch juniors LL had played a total of 11 matches in very cramped schedules over a period of two consecutive weeks. LX played only 4 matches in the same period. LL must be physically and mentally drained. Unconsciously his young body must have called out for some rest. He is only 15 and will be 16 soon. I personally think that the defeat is good for him as he will be playing a 21 yr. old Japanese player in the qualification round of the Lingshui Masters next week where he is unseeded. LX, incidentally, is seeded no. 2 in the qualification round.
There’s a significant Chinese presence in the Osaka international challenge in April too. I counted 9 MS players including Liu Haichao, Li Shifeng, Ren Pengbo, Weng Hongyan, Gao zhengze, Bai Yupeng etc. Still no Lin Guipu. I think maybe he will reappear after he finishes university this year
Maybe not a bad thing as China Masters starts on Tuesday. I doubt the finalists of the German juniors can make it back in time for this. Losing to an older Chinese player two years his senior is not entirely unpredictable, given their familiarity with each other’s playing styles. Remains to be seen whether Li Xiang can survive the cull today (3 matches due today to reach SF). Otherwise he will probably has to forfeit his qualifying match in Chinese master next Tuesday.
You are correct in your summation. Nothing to prove after winning the earlier tournaments. Better to rest for Tuesday's major junior challenge in China. It looks like, minus a strong Japanese team, the next generation of players vying for the AJC and WJC are one Canadian, one Korean, 2 indonesians and at least 3 Chinese. It will be interesting to watch how they progress.
CHN team really succeeds when it matters the most. Here is the list of players who won major titles (including BAC) post OG 2016. Zheng SW/Huang YQ : WC, AG, AE Zheng SW/Chen QC : SSF (2) Lu Kai/Huang YQ : AE, BAC Wang YL/Huang DP : WTF, BAC Liu Cheng/Zhang Nan : WC Li JH/Liu YC : WC, WTF, BAC (2) Chen QC/Jia YF : WC, AG, SSF, AE Chen Long : BAC Shi Yuqi : AE, WTF Chen Yufei : AE
What a great achievement by Chen Yufei winning the All England Championships. Many Congratulations. She showed great movement in court as Morten said, light and confident. To be able to pick up TTY's deceptive shots at shoulder level shows that she reads her opponents very well and she has great footwork.And she does it elegantly. At the start Morten has said that CYF improves with every tournament and expected TTY to have a tough game today. How right he was. Morton's years of experience, skill and love of badminton shows. CYF game against Aya Ohori was strange. She was down 3 matchpoints but recovered and won the match luckily.
And a very strange win by Zheng SW and H.Yaqiong in the AE XD final. Down in the first set and won; down 12 -4 in the second set and won. They didn't play their A game. And it also shows that Y.Watanabe and A. Higashino have a mental block when the speed of the game is changed. They like the opponents to be fast but a error ridden and lack lustre ZSW and HY affected their rhythm and their tempo and they couldn't take advantage. It was a total reverse of last years final. In 2018 the Japanese surprised the Chinese pair by their fast game.This year the Chinese surprised in return by playing differently like tai chi. Very ironic indeed!!
This makes me think that Zheng/Huang have the same ability with minions, the coming-back-from-behind ability. Seems like they have done this so often.
And lastly the WD of CC and JY winning against the No 1 and 3 seeds in succession! Unbelievable. Against the all conquering JapaneseWD teams who occupied the top 3 seeds in the tournament!! It wasn't expected as I always felt that the Chinese WD usually has one player not at her best and they lacked confidence. But after winning the second game their confidence grew and in reverse the japanese pair lost theirs. But it was the Chinese pair who refused to lose and became stronger as they began to score good points. They also cut down on their errors. This win should spur the young Chinese Wd pairs who were beginning to feel that the Japanese were invincible. The difference between the two teams is speed and strong attack. The Japanese rely a lot on these skills. I believe the CBA should only pick new juniors who surpass a certain speed of smashing for WD. They can then team up with another with good court craft. Tactics and speed can be imbued later. CC smashed much harder in the final and JY stopped her simple errors as well to put pressure on the 3rd seeds and they crumbled, surprisingly. China did surprisingly well at the AE and it wasn't expected. Congratulations and well done. On to the Swiss Open next week.
Honestly speaking I was pleasantly surprised that China could win 3 titles yesterday. I was thinking that it would lose all the 3 finals. ZSW/HYQ were not in good form. They could have been eliminated in the SF. Their mythological ancestors Yandi and Huangdi in my avatar must had protected them especially ZSW, just joking. JYF/CQC had not been performing well over the last one year and the Japanese are just too dominant in WD. CYF ,on the other hand, had 0-11 head to head against TTY and the latter was in scintillating form in the tournament, at least up to the SF . Up to the SF my only hope was in SYC but that hope evaporated when he lost to VA. Good that CYF finally achieved a breakthrough in her career and that too in a very important tournament . I believe she can still improve. Also happy that the LWM/ ZY pair has shown good improvement. Hopefully LYH/DY's win in Germany is not a flash in the pan,the Stoeva sisters were in very good form in the AE. I like the unheralded pair of OU/Ren. As for HY and CYY, don't write them off yet. Their Danish opponents have improved a lot. Danish women usually start to perform around 23 or 24 years old.
I am not sure about this but there were very few of them. Kodak Naroaka is still available as a junior . But not sure he wants to play in the AJC or the WJC. Similarly Lakshya Sen. There are a few Japaneses juniors playing in the Lingshui masters on the 12th. Lets see.
They're smart to select the big events to concentrate more, it's plausible that fans and media normally will only remember major tourneys.
I think kodai, Lakshya, kunlavut, rumbay all will focus on senior tournaments this year. Regarding recent junior GPs, China have been way too strong for other countries. It's pretty nice to see good talent in MS U19 from Canada, Russia in these two three GPs
Rumbay is overage. Kunlavert, Laskya and Kodai are the best male juniors. LL and Li Yunze may not be able to match them. Don't know about Liu Shumin. He didn't play in the junior tournaments but is in the main draw in Lingshui. Korea's best female junior should be An Se Young who did not play in the junior tournaments too.
I watched LL against Sai Charan in Dutch open. He's 15, I guess. He'll get good amount of experience till he turns 18-19.
With Chen Yufei winning the AE, she in the driving seat for qualifying for Tokyo 2020, the other ticket to represent China will be a fight between He Bingjiao, Han Yue and Li Xuerui.
