After Denmark and Korea coaches claimed that they lost the games on purpose, now it is China to say that again. China head coach Lee Yoo Boo said that China did give up the men's double against INA on purpose. The reason is that for saving the energy of Zhang Jun for the mixed double. In the late stage of first set, when the fight went to fiercely, After calculating the possibility of winning could be less than 50%, Lee decided that gave up men's double, to concentrate on the mixed double for Zhang Jun. If Zhang ran out of energy, He would not only lose the men's double, but also the mixed double. Within 20 hours, Zhang had played four matched, If he didn't concentrate to grap one, he would lose all of them. Anyway, That was Lee's thinking.
China did win the sudirman cup so yoo boo statement (lose certain match on purpose) has creditiblity and validity.
"What matters to China players is the win, not the score. That’s how we look at things. In the same way we have only been thinking about the Cup, not about next week’s individual events ..." - an excert of Li Yong Bo's interview after winning Sudirman Cup. Does anybody have any doubts about their objective? Should say not only theirs but also the other semi finalists teams.
Contrary to hm... Some teams/countries do have strategy in mind. They may have several reasons: to conserve energy, to play against a 'weaker' opponent in the semis. This is part of sport!! There is nothing shameful about it. If the team/country decides to give excuses when they lose, it's alright too. And we have to respect that.
For team battle like Surdirman cup, I can understand and accept the strategy, i.e. this is perfectly fine in my opinion. However it doesn't mean that I agree with the decision made in last Olypmic on women single.
Of course they are improving but they haven't won any big titles.Don't know why Chinese players don't like doubles,as they are they can't get much sparring practice as say indonesia.Maybe they can get Ji or Xia to play doubles when they bomb in world champs.
Birdbrain, has China ever produced other doubles greats apart from the Li and Tian combo? Because I think it's got something to do with tradition, yet again. I've heard of many good doubles pairs from Indonesia, like Christian Hadinata/Ade Chandra, Johan Wahyudi/Tjun Tjun in the 70s (?). Then of course, there was Rudy Gunawan and Eddy Hartono, like you mentioned.
Sun Zhi-an and Yao Xi-ming were great men's doubles too. They not only won Thomas Cup several times(twice or three times), but also collected many titles.
If Li Yoo Boa wanted to give up the MD goes, he should have played someone else with the Indonesian rather than risk injury for Zhang Jun. Therefore, I think China doesn't have good enough world class MD players. Zhang Jun should concentrate on MX while Gao can still play both MX & WD as long as she can draw good results. It is irony that Li & Tian were 2 times world champ but since then the Chinese MD has the worst record so far. The strongest Chinese pair goes only as far as quarter finals in some of the big games. Shame on Li Yoo Boa.
Apart from Li/Tian, other chinese pairs worth mentioning in the late 80s and early 90s; Chen Kang/Chen Hongyong, Zhang Qian/Zhou Jincan. Not as impressive as Li/Tian, but good enough to secure some points in say, Thomas Cup...
it certainly looked that way. Zhang/Zhang had a lot of momentum on the first game. if it were not for Wei pushing the net kill out, they would've forced a set. the losing on purpose between Denmark/Korea and China are subtly different. China decided to lose a match, while Denmark/Korea was trying to lose the whole group game. China still fielded the best players while Denmark fielded their second stringers. or perhaps Li was just saying that to save face. Z/Z did lose pretty badly on the second game. is anyone worried that the coaches are so open about these strategies? that may make a trend.
come one, those were not unforced errors, those were just save-energy shots. They wanted to end the match quickly so that Zhang Jun can get some rest for the mixed double.
I thought of that word, but could misleading. Usually forced errors are forced by the opponents. Zhangs' errors were NOT forced by Tong/Wijaya, if forced, just forced by the coach. What about "X-forced errors"?