Just a small lapse this time, Kwun! It won't be too much fun if they keep taking everything!! It's surprising that Lin lost -4, -4! He played so well in Denmark and up to now in Germany and then loses so tamely to Lee. MD, WD and XD were quite close, so could have gone either way. I can't even remember the last tourney that top Chinese WD participated in and did not come out with WD title! Now time to wait for HK and CHN Opens coming up.....
The good part is, most chinese players put on a fight rather than blow out. Also, consider most of them haven't taken a rest for the past 2-3 month, it's reasonable their performance will be limited sooner or later. KOR surely get a better chance for Sudirman Cup, if Kim/Ra still standing and keeping on a reasonable level, however, age / health could be the biggest factor against them. Well, CHN will surely miss the "9-matche" sudirman rather than "5-match"...
I think China still has higher chance of grabbing SC than Korea. For months now (with the exception of Indonesian Open), China has been grabbing the MS, WS, and WD, sparing only the MD and XD to others. At Indo Open, when China didn't take MS, they took MD instead. But we have all grown accustomed to them dominating the 3 events that it's no longer a surprise if they win them, but it only becomes shocking when they suddenly don't claim the titles in one tourney. Also important as LB pointed out is that China has many pairs in several discipline that can win. Ie. top 5-6 MS can win title, top 4 WS can win title, top 3-4 WD can win title, etc. How many other nations can claim this? There's no need to fret over this one "dissapointing" tourney, cuz there's lots more titles left for the taking!
Maybe they are preparing for the Thomas Cup. As for the Olympics, if you are good, you will win anyway regardless of being seeded or not. Ji Xin Peng and Zhang Jun/Gao Ling proved that last time....
You are right.. they might be preparing for TC or maybe they know that the players are not up to their expectation at the moment... Oh well there is a season for every country i guess.. there is always ups and down. Same thing happen to China few years back.. now they are back with a vengeance.
Ji and Zhang/Gao may not be good examples Cheung. They were still seeded players in the 2000 Olympics. Ji was seeded 7th in Singles, while i think Gao/Zhang were seeded 6th in Mixed.
