And the split of cai yun & fhf make a progress. Both of them with new partner beat rian/yoke and kkk/tbh in denmark open quarterfinal.. Let see how cai yun/xu chen and fhf/shen ye result in semifinal today. They will meet 1st & 2nd seed, CY/XuChen vs Kido/Hendra and FHF/ShenYe vs Dane pair..
i think in lyb's eyes, the new combo had already surpassed expectation. Playing against mk/hs would be the ultimate test.
i've said it already, the new fu and cai combo exceeded expectation already, anything beyond this stage is icing on the cake.
i fully expect Fu/Cai to be much much better when they pair up again...then Xu Chen/Shen Ye can pair up to be a pretty good pair together from what they learned from Cai/Fu respectively...
My observations on MD SF matches @ Denmark SS 2008: Cai Yun/Xu Chen - This is the first time I felt sympathy with CY (even Gillian Clark said so) as they were service faulted (even service receiving faulted) many times and the line judging seemed against them. That would have affected them psycologically. With CY/XC leading 19-14 in the 1st game, a rally was called "unsighted" when the replay showed the shuttle clearly landed on the baseline. The Chinese pair could have won the match if it was played in a neutral place. XC is still not so confident @ the net. Fu Haifeng/Shen Ye - Like XC, SY doesn't know what to do at the net at times and FHY has to cover him all over the court. They won the matches partly because JR made too many unforced errors at crucial points. IMO CY/XC is slightly stronger than FHF/SY. After all, FHF/CY is still a much better combo.
Thanks. This is interesting feedback.Your observations do not tally with the stats, esp . the net scores.So actually instead of net winners by CHN, it meant unforced net errors by DEN.How did CHN trick DEN into making too many unforced net errors? Happened with Boe/Moe too. ok, the match stats is rubbish.
I think the split of Fu-Cai is quite good results... I thought that they will lose the games in the early matches, but they could reach so far for new pairs.... Isn't its quite nice results?! Last Denmark Open, Fu's side could enter the final, now the turn for Cai's side to enter final @ French Open....
Who knows,LYB may decide to let the scratch pairs run its honeymoon course into 2009? In any case,there appears to be a shift in tactics;it's netplay driven and that has been successful against DEN but not mk/hs.