From the overwhelming votes in favour of China for the forthcoming Sudirman Cup, it looks like the other strong contenders like defending champion South Korea, Indonesia and Denmark will unlikely have any chance. And the main obstacle for them is in their women's department, the seemingly impossible task of taking the Women's Singles and Doubles events from China. But if the rest of the world (ROW) can put up a team, there is a 50/50 chance to beat the Chinese. Then the score could be: MS - China/ROW MD - ROW WS - China WD - China XD - ROW From the above prediction, if the MS is played first, it will eventually be the most crucial point for whoever that wins. Hopefully, ROW will take it so that the proceedings thereafter will be much more interesting, assuming the above format is adopted. Now who do you think should be in the ROW team and who should represent China? Your ROW team may well give a surprise by beating China 4-1 instead of just 3-2. Care to hazard a guess?
heres my suggestion for the ROW squad: MS: Taufik (providing that he's in his best shape) MD: Jens/Martin, luluk/alven, candra/sigit(providing theyre fully fit) any1 of them will do WS: any1, nobody can match chinese WS WD: Lee Hyo Jung/Lee Kyung Won MxD: Nathan/Gail or Nova/Lilyana with this line-up, a 4-1 victory for ROW is possible.
For MS: I would add Peter Gade(of course in fit shape) and Hafiz Hashim??.. MD: JR/LP WS: this is a tough one..i would bank on the former chinese players who have move to other countries..but it'll still be hard.. WD: another tough one..hmm, the new Korean pairs don't have the experience, perhaps if Ra can come back again.. XD: don't forget Kwun's new favorite pair from Thai, Prapakamol and Thungthongkam(i would like to see them in the upcoming WC).. assuming all players (Chinese and ROW are 100% healthy) realistically, the ROW would win 3-2..that in itself would be a semi-miracle...
MS: Taufik MD: Jonas & Laars Paske WS: Eriko (from JP, I heard she did really well against the Chinese, even took Zhang Ning to 3rd set) WD: Korean pair I guess? XD: Don't know, maybe KDM and Ra would come back just to give China a bit of a hassle
MS:Taufik is the only one who can challenge CHN best, but Bao would beat him IMO MD: Many pairs could challenge. I would go for JR/LP if they are on form. WD+WS: No chance CHN anytime XD: ROW easy win, 4pairs are better at the moment Most likely 3-2 China, But Could be 3-2 to ROW if bad luck in MS/MD. China will get at least two everytime.
Secret Line-UP? I wonder whether the Team Managers need to disclose their line-up in advance or reveal it during their final meeting? The secret line-up will be most interesting and should be adopted. I believe it will have to be based on World Rankings. It is interesting because China will not know whether ROW will field Taufik as MS or JR/LP as MD. Certainly Bao will be a better bet against Taufik than Lin Dan, as Jamesd20 has suggested. But what happens if the line-up turns out to be different? But any final outcome will have to depend on the form of the players on the day. If injury should hit, then the team will be greatly disadvantaged!
The only way to beat China is ROW must win MS, MD and XD because to beat China's WS and WD is harder than anything. Base on current form, here is my prediction: China 4 - 1 Rest of the World MS: Chen Hong beat Taufik Hidayat MD: Cai Yun/Fu Haifeng beat Jens Eriksen/Martin Lungaard Hansen WS: Xie Xingfang beat Pi Hongyan WD: Yang Wei/Zhang Jiewen won XD: Zhang Jun/Gao Ling lost {sorry, cafe close liao.. no time to write...}
Surprisedingly no one pick Mia and Kim/Ha yet. Mia should be the third best WS player in the world right now. Assume Kim and Ra are not rusty, this world team should give the Chinese team a good fight. MS - Taufik Hidaya WS - Mia Audina MD - Kim/Ha WD - Ra/Lee MD - Kim/Ra
Wow! You really have great faith in the Korean players! If the Koreans are in top form, they may even be able to beat the Chinese on their own in the 3 events that you indicated.
NEVER!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. My list : MS - Taufik MD - JE / ML WS - Pi Hong Yan WD - Ra / Lee XD - Saralee / Sudket After seeing Sudket and Saralee. They could give the chinese more than they bargained for
The strength of the Chinese is even more apparent if we have a competition in this format. 2 MS 2 WS 2 MD 2 WD 2 XD ie. 2 matches for every event. Lin Dan & Chen Hong Xie and Zhang Cai/Fu and Sang/Zheng Gao/Huang and Yang/Zhang Zhang/Gao and another one Admittedly, the ROW can grab both points in the XD, but it's hard for ROW to get even a draw.
You are quite a fair Team Manager by fielding a truly international line-up! Any ambition of seeing service in the diplomatic corp?
If they allow no restrictions on the line-up, ie, not based on WR, then ROW may, with a little bit of luck, surprise by winning 7-3: 1 MS 1 WS 2 MD 1 WD 2 XD Or a less optimistic 6-4, with ROW winning 1 MD instead of 2 MD! Do you think this is possible?
where will the 1 from WS come from??? recent competitions sugget nobody can beat xie xingfang or zhang ning:crying: :crying:
I was hoping that Mia Audina could miraculously reduce her weight substantially and go back in time to beat Zhang Ning when Mia was barely 16! Miracles do happen even in our age and time, or do they?
Of course it can happen. But you are imagining the extreme there. On the other extreme, we can also imagine China just losing 1 MD and 1 XD, thus winning 8-2. Instead, if we look at it neutrally and think about who the favourites will be, China has the edge. MS - Between Lin and Chen, we expect at least a point. WS - The odds favour Xie and Zhang getting both points. MD - No one can beat Fu/Cai today, so there's one point there, and Sang/Zheng won't be easy to beat either WD - Gao/Huang could be beaten, but I cannot imagine Yang/Zhang losing to a pair from outside China. XD - both pairs can be (and I think, will) be beaten So, that's about 5 points to China already. Expand the competition to 3 matches per event (like Thomas and Uber Cup combined, but with 5 additional doubles) and China will start to be in trouble, but can still fight ROW. That's the depth of China's strength.
To break the Chinese -WS- wall, we need somebody like Mia. There are some non-Chinese players who can break the Chinese WS domonation, like : Camilla, Mia, Wang, Yao, Pi, Eriko, Kaori, Yonekura, Hallam, Rasmussen, etc... But now, Camilla is retired, Yonekura getting old. Yao and Pi seem not good enough to break. I see that Eriko, Kaori, Hallam and Rasmussen have a chance to break. But the most one is indeed Mia. If I may say, Mia is a anti-Chinese player. The problem is that Mia not only have to reduce her weight (like Loh said), but also her endurance has to get ready for 3 tough sets.
MS - its possible to beat all the current chinese MS (lin, bao, chen, xia) providing the equation is right. no guarantee for either side WS - yes, this is 2 points for china in the bag MD - Fu/Cai IS beatable, sang/zheng is still outclassed by more experienced doubles. No guarantee for china, 1 point guaranteed for ROW WD - i actually think Yang/Zhang is the pair that can be beaten (only by korea's Lee/Lee), but Gao/Huang have always either loose to Yang/Zhang or win the tournament. 1 point guaranteed for china XD - yes, both chinese pairs will be beaten. 2 points for ROW so IMO both China and ROW each have 3 points in the bag, which means its everything to play for in the other 4 matches.
I'm glad you defended my 'extreme' position well enough and brought hcyong back to his senses by refuting his claim that "no one can beat Fu/Cai today". Suffice it to say that we have witnessed the seemingly omnipotent Lin Dan brought to his knees by Ronald Susilo during the Athens Olympics and more recently by compatriot Chen Hong during the All England. But I'm disappointed that you did not think that Mia could challenge the Chinese. Mia is the only non-Chinese that has given a big headache to the Chinese ladies in recent years and I don't think Zhang Ning can easily disregard her. Mind you, Mia is the Athens Olympics silver medalist not for nothing!
