Sudirman Cup report - semifinal China vs. Indonesia

China vs. Korea

The first semi final played in the Cup was between China and Korea. The line up is:

Bao vs. Taufik
Zhou Mi vs. Kristen Maria
Zhang Wei / Cai Yun vs. Candra / Sigit
Wei Yili / Zhao TingTing vs some unknown

Bao vs. Taufik

In my analysis article posted last week in badmintonforum.com, I speculated that Taufik’s injury that causes his early exit in the all England may still be affecting his performance. After all, he mentioned skipping the Japan Open later on in the year. However, today Taufik played rather excellently.

Slow to the start, Bao was in the attack all game, quickly rushes to 7-1. I noticed one of the strategy that Bao used was to use fast and flat attacking clear and since Taufik stands one head below Bao, that was rather effective and managed to force a few short lifts. In addition, Bao is really tall, his jumping tap smashes are really sharp despite Taufik’s defense.

At the first couple of games, Taufik’s wasn’t really showing his real stuff, his defense was slower than normal pace. However, he started to wake up in the second game, and with the display of the signature rear court jumpsmashes (you gotta be here to appreciate how powerful that was) and excellent tactics with defense. A few occasions, we see Taufik was so confidence in his defense, he deliberately fed half court high pushes to Bao and all Taufik did was to manipulate Bao left and right on half court, Bao being less experienced often erroneously hit the birdie into the net. Taufik claimed game 2.

The 3rd game was very exciting. With a lot of service exchanges. I remember they were stuck at 5-5 at one point and there must have been around 15 service exchanges. Both players shows what they are made of, Taufik was excellent both offensively and defensively, I was a bit disappointed that Taufik didn’t show many tricky shots, he did attempted to make a few really extravagant cross court drives but were not too successful. But Taufik’s backhand is just as amazing, despite the fact that he relies on it too often and Bao was able to read them. Bao on the other hand, was always fast to getting the shot, he took all shots at the earliest position, however, I felt that he was more mechanical and less fun to watch with little variation and creativity in shot choices. I also noticed that Bao made A LOT of service errors, he must have given up 6-7 services from serving into the net. I think he will need to work on that more.

The 3rd game lasted a long time and Taufik eventually came on top at 15-13.

Indonesia 1 – China 0

I believe the Chinese was probably expecting Bao to win a point here, but with Bao’s lpost,, China needs to grab all of WS/WD/XD. The next match was between Zhou Mi and Marie Kristen.

Zhou Mi vs. Marie Kristen

Zhou Mi we all know. Marie Kristen is some really young player, from her look she must be at most 18. may be even younger, and when compared to Zhou Mi, she is much more petite. My reaction before the game is that the game is similar to getting herself tie down in a chopping board and the butcher can have then start chopping her into pieces. However, to my surprise, Zhou Mi was having a little bit of trouble against Marie.

Marie has a really strange stroke, we all know that coaching tells us the contact point ideally is in front of one’s head. But Marie’s preferred contact point is behind her head, while the power is less, it also means that the unorthodox stroke requires less court coverage and better in court situations. On top of that, the shot is harder to read. A couple of occasion, Zhou was unable to read Marie’s over the head and behind the head drop shots. Being petite also helped. I don’t believe Marie weighs anything more than 90lbs. comparatively, Zhou Mi’s movement was more taxing than Marie, covering corner to corner, we see Zhou Mi huffing and puffing and Marie was rather comfortable with it. Also, Marie reads Zhou’s shots well and was fast to the birdie and then deceptively chooses to take the shot at the last moment.

Despite all that, Zhou Mi is after all Zhou Mi, she won the second tie 11-8 11-8.

Indonesia 1 – China 1

The next match was between Candra / Sigit and Zhang Wei / Cai Yun.

Zhang Wei / Cai Yun vs. Candra / Sigit

Oh, what a match. We all know about Candra and Sigit are capable of and how China’s MD is always their weakness. No one expects anything from China other than a training lesson learned.

Not so.

I have never seen Cai Yun played before, but I must say that I am very much impressed and Cai’s play was key to the match. Cai is a tall and well built guy. I’d say around 6 feet and 170lbs. not too big to be slow, and tall and big enough to be effectively offensively. His smashes are not fancy to watch like Sigit’s, but it was purely hard and effective. With Zhang’s relatively weaker smashes, we saw that Cai was the preferred person at the back. Cai being younger also means that he has much more energy, I only saw a slight tiredness at the middle of the match.

Anyhow, Candra and Sigit was having a lot of trouble with the Chinese offense, after all, the Indonesian’s forte is the fast and furious flat drives that the Chinese seems to be avoiding. On top of that, the Chinese has amazing brick wall defense, despite how strong the attack was, the shuttle was always like hitting a brick wall. Both Zhang Wei and Cai. Even though the Indonesian seems to be prefer smashing to Cai for his less experience but Cai was more than up to the challenge.

As for being a new comer, Cai only showed inexperience in a handful of occasions and was way more outweighed by his effective offense and defense. Cai played like a veteran, he was calm and composed throughout the match. He read the game well and have his own bag of trick shots

And unbelievably, and must be a surprise to everybody, China won the match convincing in two games. I am very impressed by the progress that China has made in the MD, and impressed with the choice of players in the match. Tang and Li made the right choice and bargain with having Zhang Jun specialize in XD and have Zhang Wei partnered with a up and rising stronger young player. The future for China’s MD is bright indeed.

Indonesia 1 – China 2

At this point of the match, the outlook for Indonesia is grim indeed. While they won the MS, they lost the expected point from MD. With the remaining WD and XD matches. It will take a miracle for Indonesia to win.

Wei Yili / Zhao TingTing vs. some unknown.

Honestly, I don’t even remember the names of the two Indonesian young players. At this point, it doesn’t really matter who they are anymore. Despite one of them having a jump smash (we tend to see that more from the Indonesia WD team more than others) and pretty hard one as well. They were no match to the Chinese speed, power and experience.

However, the Chinese do not seem to be in too good a form, I wasn’t expecting the scores to be that close, memory tells me they around 15-12 15-10. but eitherway, the girls delivered and China has won the semifinal with a score of 3-1

 

glad you guys got to see the TV coverage. what i like about the Indonesia and the Korean WS is that their court movement seems to be much more fluid than the Chinese. i find that GongRN and Zhou Mi are slower in movement in comparison. notice that Maria is always taking the shot earlier than Zhou? the strange stroke, still cannot get over that. one thing that i notice is that i don't find any resemblance between Maria and Susi Susanti. last time around in SC 2001, i remember GongZC was playing against a really short Indonesia girl whose shots were closer to Susi. i wonder if Susi has a hand in Maria or not.

i wonder if China's preference to taller and stronger players are starting to back fire. Taufik nor LeeHI are not especially tall nor big. but fast and versatile. and now we see Jun Jae Youn and Maria who are also small and fast in the court.

and about Cai Yun, his performance in the semi was impressive indeed. but he completely lost the sharpness in the final against Lee/Yoo. slower, less power. dunno why.

 

i find LeeHI's stroke the hardest to see. very little but amazing fast and powerful racket movement. similar to Dong Jiong.

i also find that the latest generation of Chinese players are all rather bland. very nice and standard stroke, but i am not sure how good prettiness will lead them as their styles are not very creative and almost robot like.