hmm I dont know if its a surprise that Kaldau beats Shon. Perhaps a little surprise but Kaldau also did very well in Denmark Open and is now in top form. Tomorrow Lin Dan will be a very hard opponent perhaps to hard but lets see..Bao will face Lee, I think this match is 50/50. Kim and Ra are invincible having gained over 4000 points on the ranking list!! I never seen anything like this so they will problary gain this title to their collection. Wenn will the seeding and draw be made for Hong Kong Open and when will the three asian tournaments be played??
Very impressive result from Lamp and Boe beating Lee and Yoo, but they will have a tough match next round
Results Up to Now MS: Lee Hyun Il bt. Bao Chunlai 15-10, 15-5 Lin Dan bt. Niels Kaldau 15-9, 17-14 WS: Zhang Ning bt. Pi Hongyan 11-3, 11-7 Camilla Martin bt. Gong Ruina 11-5, 11-7 MD: Limpele/Hian bt Kim/Ha 15-8, 15-10 WD: Lee/Ra bt. Zhang/Zhang 15-5, 15-10 Zhang/Yang bt. Hwang/Lee 15-8, 15-6 XD: Zhang/Gao bt. Prapakamo/Thungthongkam 15-3, 15-6 So, surprising points are 1. China's not guaranteed any golds in any events! 2. Kim/Ha is beatable (but how bout Kim/Ra?)!! 3. Lin Dan is probably going to win 2nd straight GP!!
Update: MD: Cai/Fu bt. Boe/Lamp 15-6, 15-3 XD: Kim/Ra bt. Eriksen/Schjoldager 15-2, 15-10 Kim/Ra is still invicible but China now have possibility for gold in all 5 events.
what a treat at the German Open!! Lin vs. Lee - two very complete yet offensive players, top Korean vs. top Chinese. Camilla vs. ZhangN - repeat of WC stunning defeat of Camilla, does Zhang still have the steam in here? will Camilla give out steam again? Limpele/Hian vs. Cai/Fu - L/H went back to INA, did they improve? playing against top Chinese youngster, this will be an exciting one! Ra/Lee vs. Zhang/Yang - Zhang/Yang has been doing really well lately, peaking at their partnership only after playing for less than a year. Ra/Lee is still the non-Chinese pair to beat. Kim/Ra vs. Zhang/Gao - what can i say? Kim/Ra is invincible and the only pair that managed to disprove that has been Zhang/Gao but they haven't been doing well lately. anybody care to record the final and send it to me?
Indeed a very exciting matchup in the finals. Hian and Limpele look very strong, taking out Ha and Kim in just two games in the semis. My vote goes to Zhang Ning, though I'd like to see Camilla win it. neither one of them has dropped a game en route to the final though, so they are both playing well. Kwun, if you obtain a copy, feel free to bill me and send it over to the east coast gregory
final results WD and MS titles were grabbed by the Koreans. Wonder what had happened to Lin Dan.... WD: RA Kyung Min/LEE Kyung Won beat YANG Wei/ZHANG Jiewen 15:6 / 15:17 / 15:8 MS: LEE Hyun II beat LIN Dan 15:4 / 15:4
MD final Hian/Limpele bt Fu/Cai 9-15 15-8 15-4 Only one title for China in German Open, that's rare enough to be pointed out!!
No more China Sweep.. now all of us can have a break from Tourneys at the moment... looking forward for Hong Kong Open...
China got into 5 finals, and then losing 4 of them. 3 of them to Koreans. it looks like if Korea keeps it up, they will be retaining the next Sudirman Cup. or may be not if Kim/Ra retires...
The indonesians seem to be very quiet nowadays... Maybe they are doing some restructuring in the team.
There's still time for Kim Yong Hyun/Lee Hyo Jung to mature. They can also pick up some pointers from their seniors. The German Open is one of the rare tournaments (or the only?) whereby none of the finals are internal affairs. How refreshing. But seems like Korea and China are becoming more and more dominant among the usual five powerhouses. Denmark's somewhere in the middle. It'd be great if Mas and Ina can get back into contention. Then we'll have matches more exciting than internal affairs especially in the finals of big tournaments.
