They have won Japan & China Open before. I prefer them winning Denmark Open. Recently, not many INA players won at Denmark. Even AhmadNatsir lost in Final there (4 times?) Winning at Madses home sure will feel good.
Even in this AG I don't think they did that well either, but at least as it wasn't a slow hall so they could manage to win a few scores more than their opponents. Which is enough to win their matches and eventually the gold medal match. They did it without the coach and had to play against probably the most inspired pair in the tournament in the final. Quite proving that their mental probably wasn't really as weak as people suspect. Not as strong as ZN but at least muuuch better than LC. Nerves, of course and the opponents could play some roles too. Probably if in Nanjing they had played Li/Liu or Madses instead of Kamura/Sonoda, Kevin would have gotten motivated and loosen up a bit. Just my speculation though
Hmm. I think after Gideon is injured.. they don't play that well coming up to AG anyways. I don't know if it's up to the injury tho. Let's see if this gold could become their stepping stone for other majors..
they don't play well since tuc, but somehow still win IO super 1000 and AG gold...I guess playing in istora help them.
Playing in Istora definitely helps Marcus with his smashes and moving at the least. They actually played better in Indonesia Open surprisingly especially in the Semi and the Final. But it wasn't the case in Asian Games, though they did quite well in team event against Kamura/Sonoda and Li/Liu. To think that Kamura/Sonoda kept losing their matches in Istora in R1, I guess this venue might just be an unfavorable one for them. The draw of China Open is out, and top half : Q1 : Minions against another INA Arya/Santoso then R2 against THA Isriyanet/Namdash. QF could be against Inoue/Kaneko or Goh/Tan Q2 : Liu/Zhang vs Ahsan/Hendra in R1, with Lee/Lee or Madses waiting in QF Bottom half we have: Q3: R1 of Fajar/Rian against Kamura/Sonoda, R1 of Boe/Mo against Chen/Wang whom they lost in IO. Q4: Li/Liu should get to SF pretty easily as the only notable pair to upset them would be Endo/Watanabe The draw seems to be pretty straight forward.
https://badmintonindonesia.org/app/information/newsDetail.aspx?/7366 just read kevin's interview with Badmintonindonesia.org, didn't know that he idolizes lin dan...I thought he's gonna mention someone from mens double category when being asked about someone he admired
Translating the interview in English with Google : "What did Kevin first say to Fajar / Rian shortly after winning on the field? I said, thank you for today, we really hockey, you play very well." I guess most players look up to Lin Dan for his consistency in winning most of the (major) titles in a long period of time. On the other hand, Zhang Nan in his profile said that he idolized Taufik Hidayat.
Looks like the main goal of this Macau athlete from joining Asian Games 2018 was to meet Kevin instead of competing in this multi-sport event. So hilarious! Unfortunately she failed to bag any medals in this Asian Games.. Well, at least this cute fangirl managed to meet her idol somehow.
LD has the most fans all over the world, his attitude is clearly not better than Hendra nor anybody else.
in the interview he also said that a lot of people doubt that they can win in major event and can only win in superseries event and he is happy now that he can prove them wrong
Like TTY said, there is nothing to prove. If you win, you win. If you lose, you lose. In the end, its just a gold or a title, they still have to win at JapanChinaDenmark etc. Otherwise you can prove by winning 1 gold like Zn/LC but after that cant win anything. In the end people can see the true colours.
It's not just a gold, TTY herself seemed to want that AG gold very badly. Minions even cried after winning it and they never cried winning any other title before. I guess it is easier to shrug it off when you lose. ZN/LC won Denmark Open. The true colors of this pair is that LC as ZN's partner is too weak in nerves department, not reliable in spite of some good games now and then. Unlike Marcus who is lacking in technical or skill department, but had proven to be pretty reliable under pressure.
I think they are. They have only played in 2 Super 500 so far, and they need to attend another 2 for this year quota? They should be going to Korea Open after Japan- China Open and Hong Kong Open after China Masters. The draw is not out yet but I think I heard Steen mentioned about LYD/KGJ playing Chen/Wang R1 in Korea Open? Steen had mistaken some players name with others so I am not so sure if I heard him right lol. He called Gideon "Markis Kido" and Kim GJ "Ko SungHyun" before correcting himself.
Understandable, confusing Gideon with the other overweight Indonesian who got carried by his vastly more talented partner... I'm just joking. Probably confused them because this pair reminds him of Kido/Setiawan, and probably called Kim Ko by out of reflex since he and Lee used to actually play together...he seems to have a pretty packed schedule, so I can forgive a small mishap with a name here and there.
I found his mistakes funny because those 4 players he got confused had similar physicality as being not slim nor slender except KSH was probably more a "strong specimen" quoted by a well-known fan. Though I guess it's more because of the similarity of Markus and Markis sound for these two Indonesian players rather than the overweight part. Yeah he seems to be very busy. He was at the final individual AG matches till Tuesday night and then he was back in Europe to commentate in Spain Masters a few days later. I wonder if he would be in China Open again this year. Usually Gill would do Japan on her own, China with Steen and who knows who would be in Korea this time (hopefully not anyone too annoying).
Gideon's wife is expecting, and is on the fourth month pregnancy now. Congratulation to the couple. Not so sure if this had anything to do with Gideon's declining form after the break, but he might have worked out too much back then? How hard is it to regain his former good form? lol I guess we will have the first mini minions soon.
Unfortunately minions aren't going to play in Korea Open. The first seed for MD is Kamura/Sonoda. So I guess most INA and CHN pairs won't be there. https://bwf.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/draw.aspx?id=64F74681-A9A8-487F-8C60-E1F23803BB7E&draw=6
