Not really in my opinion. They have a lot of good depth, but when it comes to dependable ones, there's only Lin Dan. The rest is still not consistent enough to be depended on. If we look at the potential champions materials around, its quite even in that each country have one or at most two of them. But China's advantage is that they have enough good quality players to wear out the best guys from other countries.
i think its better if BAM (Malaysia) n PBSI (indonesia) give more opportunity to young player to play in international tournament .... can not just depend to old players ....
Yes. They had 3 players who were in two semi-final matches each today but only Lee Yong-dae won both his matches. The other two, Lee Jae-jin and Lee Hyo-jung, who both had a few occasions to wear two hats in finals of tournaments in 2005, only succeeded separately today, not together in their mixed semi-final. Both mixed and women's doubles tomorrow will be Korea vs. Thailand and both will involve Saralee Thoungthongkam.
Lee Yong Dae seems to have formed a very lethal partnership with Jung Jae Sung in the MD and Hwang Yu Mi in the XD. I think the key thing is to find a younger partner for him. I think Jung Jae Sung is 26 or 27, while Lee Yong Dae has not even reached 18! As for the XD partnership, do you know how old is Hwang Yu Mi? They will go far... As for Lee Jae Jin, he hasn't been winning titles with Lee Hyo Jung this year...despite not playing in MD . Only in the past 2 tournaments we have seen the new partnership with Hwang Ji Man. I am not sure how this new pair will fare in the LR...since Korea has the tendency to mix and match the players. I thought Hwang Ji Man is pretty settled with Han Sang Hoon. But...apparently Tan Kim Her has other ideas.
Jung Jae-sung turns 24 at the end of August. Lee Yong-dae will turn 18 a few weeks later. Hwang Yu-mi is 23 now. You're right about the mixing and matching. It isn't just a Tan Kim Her idea, either. It started before that. Kim Dong-moon and Ha Tae-kwun were the same age and played together when they were in middle school apparently and still from 1995 to 1997, his regular partner was Kang Kyung-jin. The same thing seems to have happened with Lee Jae-jin and Jung Jae-sung. They were seeing results back in 2000 when they were both in high school and then played together all through university but then were split up. Tan Kim Her may have done more mixing because this is a rebuilding period and finding the right combination has been a little tricky. This is Lee Yong-dae's 3rd year on the national team but he is only now coming into his own and I think Tan did right in finding him a strong partner. As for mixed, if Hwang passes her prime, there is always Ha Jung-eun, who is only a year older and she and Lee were runners-up in the nationals last year losing to Lee/Lee in the final.
Define special. Lee Hyun-il is #7 in the world, was runner-up at the All England this year and won 2 tournaments last year. He was ranked #1 for almost a year back around 2003. Shon Seung-mo was the Olympic silver-medalist. Neither of them are consistent these days. Park Sung-hwan reached the QF of this event but in my opinion he isn't destined to be a champion. Korea's men's singles players have never dazzled the world like their doubles players but they're still good.
Can it be verified? Ranked #1 for a year? How many players did that before? Any experts help to answer? Ranked #1 for a year is really the #1. If ranked #1 for a couple of days, even weeks, doesn't mean much. The ranking system had so many pitfalls. But for a year, is different!
Maybe I was exaggerating. I checked and I found he was #2 for several months in late 2003. I must have remembered that wrong. I wouldn't think being #1 for a whole year would be that rare. When LCW took the #1 spot away briefly a few months ago, hadn't Lin Dan been ranked #1 for a year or more continuously?
Yes. You can verify it with the historical rankings function on the IBF website. Well, technically, I didn't actually say for one year. I said "almost a year". Either way, it looks as if my memory was way off. In fact I can only find him ranked #1 for one week back in early 2004. If you want to check who was ranked #1 for the longest, try that function.
