Hi all, Just come back from Birmingham and my word, what can i say?! Some cracking games that left all of us on the edge of our seats, truely breathtaking badminton! So, here is my round up of what happened. 1st Game - Mixed Doubles This turned out to be rather dissapointing and not as good as i hope. At the start, Kim was very nervous playing many smashes into the net, but when he found his ground, did he make sure those shuttles went away. A truely dominating performance, with him smashing and folloing everything through to the net. There was a series of long rallies that were good, but the Chinese pair and raining champions never seemed to really get started, and they lost to the mighty Kim in straight games. What amazed me about Kim is his ability to read the game so quickly, amazing! 2nd Game - Ladies Singles Not my favourite, but it turned out to be a good game. Gong got away quickly with some nice net shots, but Zhang's drops and slices were out of this world, leaving Gong nowehere to be seen. These tight net shots in reply meant a strong shams to finish the point, and Zhang's hold and flick across to the backhand side left a weak reply which could be killed off. Both played well and moved the shuttle about, both moving well and some extremely long rallies which left the crowd applauding, supurb badminton. 3rd Game - Men's Singles The one i had been looking foward to, Xia against Wong, and in my eyes, two very evenly matched players. Xia got off to a great start in the first game and it seemed Wong was a little edgy, maybe Xia's experience is what helped. However, in the second game Wong took control and with some extremely long rallies, lots of diving on the court to save the point. Wong took the second game, and then we knew we was in for a battle. The third game was neck a neck, and towards the end Wong looked a little tired. Some long rallies went in Xia's way and he say gold, he just then stepped up the pace and then won the match. An emotional display as he kneeled on the floor with his head in has hands banging against the floor, then standing up and throwing his shirt into the crowd. A great match that went the full distance. What gave Xia the advantage was his deception, Wong didnt know which way to go and was second guessing most of the time. 4th Game - Ladies Doubles Pretty much knew who the winners would be here as the past record went in Gao / Huang's favour. Some long rallies again, but the number 1 seeds had incredible power and defence that moved the shuttleabout and created all sorts of problems, however, the 4th seeds over come it and with the longest rally around 81 shots, overcome their opponents and duely won the game. 5th Game - Mens Doubles The one i had been looking foward to as, not only is it my game, but as it had Candra / Sigit playing in it, and to be honest, my money was on them with their performance during the previous rounds. However, can someone tell me what Sigit was playing at in the first game?? He was more than showboating, with a shot froma round his side and around the back of his head happening in the first few points! The Danes rushed to a 13-1 lead and it looked bad. They took it fairly comfortably but Sigit was making many mistakes, i felt sorry for Chandra. The second game they come alive, and it turned out to be nail biting. The danes had great movement and defence and caught the Indo's off guard. Anything short, Jonas was driving back and taking TOTAL control of the net. The got to a 13-9 lead and it looked all over. But nerves got to them as they lost the second 15-13. Both sides were now on fire, and the Danes were playing brilliant. Sheer power made sure the Indo's defence had to be spot on. Some brilliant flat rallies left the audience with their head in their hands, and i couldnt watch!! The Danes got to a 14-9 lead, and all of a sudden the Indo's come back 14-13 with a second serve. A powerful smash see that the defence from Wijaya went out, and the went on to win the game 15-13. A truely emotional celebration as Jonas kneeled with his hands in the air, and Lars laid on the floor banging his hands. Jonasran around the court and then embraced Lars, and then the coach. But, i have no idea what Sigit was doing, and they were getting in eachothers way all the time, maybe he tried to be something a little too special, but anyway, congrats to Jonas and Lars! So, there is my mini round up of todays events, if you caught it on TV, the mens doubles and singles is one to look out for....breathtaking, fingerbiting play from all players. Matt
I agree Matt, having seen Candra/Sigit come back in their semi final it was a very similar story. At the start of the semi Sigit looked totally out of the game, getting hit with the shuttle and crashing into Candra. Whilst in the semi they were able to take advantage of the young chinese lack of confidence to come back they clearly couldn't pull it off in the final. Sems crazy to criticise world silver medalists I know but I think C/S were off their best by some way, even compared with their AE performance earlier in the year.
Yes, not the best performance by S/C but a great tactical performance by JR/Lars. See them play a bit more to Sigit rather than Candra. Flick serve used quite often by JR. One thing surprising was S/C unable to take advantage of smashing the flick serve. Matt, I thought the mixed doubles was amazing - an amazing performance by Kim/Ra. This was like the 1999 WC s/f. Best players on court were Gao, Ra, Kim. Zhang Jun looked like slightly outclassed. And great atmosphere as well. The crowd was great!!!
No doubt Zhang and Gao were out-classed. JR/Paske were playing like HA/KIm or Gunawan/Halim, like Zhao said Europeans playing Asian style, together with China pairs future stars. JR the creator and Paaske the finisher.
JR was definatley the playmaker of the pair. But Lars did his share of playmaking as well. Letahl combination to have two individuals of the pairing with creativity. Noticed a lot of their shots came from their mixed doubles training. Anybody notice the Danish cross court backhand drives of both players. Fast, straight, bullet like without looking like any effort at all. I wanna learn how to play that shot!!
These images show what it meant to Jonas to win the final: I really wish I could have seen this match. Obviously, something big has happened in their game, and I'd like to see what the difference is now from, say, two years ago. Then they still hadn't quite "found" eachother, and Jonas still had some work to do on serving, Paaske was perhaps lacking in power. But I remember two things that were very distinctive about this pair: * Jonas seems to have some an instinct to rush to the net at EXACTLY the right time for a kill. He has an extra-ordinary eye for the game. *Lars' incredible reactions. Most players prefer defending using the backhand even on the forehand side, but Lars often keeps a forehand ready stance in receiving smashes, which enables him to make very offensive returns. To me, that's a very "Korean" style of playing. Any comments from those who watched the final?
Interesting point Mag re defence. One of the points made at the world coaches conference was that players taught to defend with backhand bias have a weakness at whatever level and that this was not exploited enough. I have always taught my players to develop forehand and backhand defence (more korean as you say) but even at the world level there are a lot of players who defend backhand from the forehand side/ hip or "guess" which side, which can be exploited by the thinking attackers.
Gao Ling was very good with the forehand defense, when I watched her in the mixed semi-final against JR and Rikke Olsen. She would often move away from the shuttle (to her left) to enable her to take the smash return on her forehand (in a crouched position). This made her return very deceptive and gave her a lot of attacking options. Just beautiful to watch!!
Mag, you are quite correct about Jonas' timing to the net area. Lars, I didn't notice that about his defence. But I have seen Lars get nervous before. It happened again (only so natural in the WC final!) and that let the Indonesians pull back in the final game. Lars played a little more conservatively and that was enough for Sigit to pounce on the shuttle. But both players received serve well.
Great pics of our fellow BF Jonas!! Look at that jump in the second pic!!! Wonderful to see the joy and adulation of what winning means.
Singles final Both players were very nervous in the first game, but Xia controlled throughout and won it quite comfortably. The second game was less clear cut, and wong came out very quick and built a small lead, before Xia got into the game and came 12-9 up. At this point wong changed his game, previousley, he was attacking and dropping, however Xia's net play and defence was putting him under pressure and tiring him. What he then began to do was c;ear and engage Xia inlonger rallies, in oppurtunities where previousley smashed he dropped, or more likely cleared, this was a changed and Xia was caught out by this. In the third game Xia became clever also and although hurt by the 2nd game loss he played clever, and tried to tire wong out, whether due to confidence of his fitness or sensing weakness inwong. He achieved this by when onhis serve playing conservativley even when in control playing safe and moving wong about, rather than killing the game off, as although wong was weak in defence itwould tire himself out. When on wongs serve he worked very hard to make sure he won the point by atacking, not risking a lift, as wong could take a point. I felt this was very clever play and by 6-6 wong was very tired, and started second guessing the shots, resulting in being late and simply clearing, leaving Xia to control and take points fairly easily. clever play by both players and a very intresting game to watch, both players came out with tremendous credit. Although for outright excitement the qf with Xia/johanessen was better.
