I dont see him winning the Olympics....in fact he should have retired a long time ago...he struggled against so many players nowadays...and legend demoted to a normal player now..embarrassing downhill
Even Marc Zwiebler can beat him twice....a lot of players are not afraid of his skills anymore...they can use their power and speed to win points against him
taufik doesn't lose to anybody except himself. he still has speed and stamina, but his choice of shots and pace of game is no longer viable in the meta game (wasting energy on ineffective smashes, not to mention the cross-court ones...). he still plays like he did back in 2004, while everyone else has moved on.
Yes the winning game he plays in 2004 no longer effective against players who rely so much on their speed and power to finish off the rallies...Futhermore people come out with clever ideas how to block their attacks and fend off net plays, taufik cannot win points easiliy from them lol. If he face LCW now at his best, he will still lose becaus LCW is one/two steps ahead of him....no matter how skillful you are, it counts for nothing when the opponent is technically unflawed plus he is a lot FASTER than you...
Don't really agree, He was hitting 300km/h smashes in that final, way faster than smashes are today by LD and LCW not to mention his backhand smashes. Check out this link, Tuafik still doing this, i don't think so, anybody reached this standard never mind surpassed it, no. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r590F7mRTw , This massive power kept opponents guessing, he no longer possesses this power. If he did he would still be capable of winning any tournament
First of all, at Lin Dan current form which will improve further at Olympics games, the chance he falls to any player before final is very small unless he picks up injury during the games. If it does happen, then I think LCW has the best chance to claim the title but not 100%. Players like Chen Long, LHI, TH, K Tago and chen Jin (if he makes it to London) will try their best to prevent him to get the title. Out of these players, I think Chen Long is the most dangerous one because he has proved to every one that he can beat LCW outside Malaysia. Chen Long is not at his peak at the moment and this could make people underetimate him. I suspect this could what chinese team want so that less people will pay attention to C L. TH has proved that he could still play very well in ALL England 2012. He is such an experience and skillful player. He was the one who stopped LCW at world championship 2010. LHI is always a dark horse in major championship and has picked his form lately. Tago and Chen Jin didn't have good record against LCW but anything can happen in Olympics.