Ricky just rang me. He is at the stadium. It's 8.15pm Only Fu Hai Feng/ Cai Yun have survived so far in the HK Open. A disaster of epic proportions for China supporters.....
Well, look at their opponents, I am not very surprised. Zhang/Wang lost to Sigit & his new partner, Chen/Cheng lost to Lee/Yoo, not very "shocking" news for me. But what's the score though? Hope they at least put on a fight. The chinese MD are still improving with relatively inconsistentcy. Their past achievement were highly related with the injury of KOR / MAS pairs, no-show of Den pairs (INA OPen), and new formation of INA pairs. However, Sang/Zheng lost to Han/Bach after blew them off in 1st set was unbelieveable to me. What happened? Too tired from the "city games"? Any one injuried??? This pair has the "easiest" draw, and they really should go much deeper. Well, kinda a waste. Long way to go.
I wouldn't say that they had the easiest draw. Howard and Kevin are really good and really focused. It couldn't have been too easy if they beat them.
I haven't watched the games of Sang/Zheng but I've watched Fu/Choi's games against Sigit's pair. I think the performance of Fu/Choi vs Sigit/Trifius is pretty closed. In fact, it is difficult to tell which pair will win when I was watching the 3rd game. There is no doubt Sigit is the better men doubles player among these four people. His performance is amazing imo - unbeliverable skills and control (which I'll talk about it later), extremely fast reaction and speed, with tremendous power, ..., etc. The problem is his partner cannot cooperate with him all the times, and when more mistakes were made end-up, Sigit seemed loss confidence of his partner and frequently tried to "safe" some shots for him and "checked" where his partner was. These problems were more appearable in the semi-final games when they play against the Korean pair. Among Fu and Choi, I noticed Fu made more errors in the quarter-final match (played against Sigit's pair). I guess he was probably a bit nervous. There is no doubt they are the best men doubles pair from China nowadays. I think their strength is their speed and power, i.e. their offense is very good, but there are rooms for improvements on defense.
1st, I am from US, and I fully respect our nation's representatives. I know Howard and Kevin are pros, and in any sense, they gain my full respects. However, I am using the term "easy", just for a relative term. Compare to me, everyone of them are top top stars, but compare to other tops pairs like Kim/Ha, Lee/Yoo, the splited Candra and Sigit and their new partners, even the in-consistent Chinese pairs, I have to say, sad but true, the US pair is the "soft cake".
either they had a particularly bad day, or they underestimated their opponents. if the former, well, too bad, anybody can have a bad day. go home and train more. if the latter, then they deserve to lose and hope that will be their lesson to remember for the future. they are professionals playing in an international tournament, they should never underestimate any opponents.
More or less, I think there's something to do with #2. Sang / Zheng won 1st set 15:2, which might further "prove" their expection. Then, they lost 2nd set with close score. Maybe still acceptable, since that might just be "luck". Then, by the time they realize the "truth" in late 3rd, too late...
Perhaps they did underestimate them. But shouldn't Sang/Zheng have realized their mistake at the end of the 2nd game not the middle or whenever of the 3rd? I think that they should have left the 5 minute break knowing that they "should have won," and then finish the game in the same manner as they did the first one. In summary, they should have realized the "truth" going into the third game. You can't win against someone that good with just pure luck. I mean, if it were so I should have either Howard or Kevin buy me a few lottery tickets. And then, I guess you also have to consider that after winning the 2nd game, their opponents confidence and mental strength probably went up by 200%. Just my 2 cents.
