it is not just volley in tennis, Actually, after Edberg and Becker, more people like to play baseline, from Michael Chang, Jim Courier through Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras, all the winners are baseliners. Reality check, it is Badminton just trading volleys which, according to you, makes the doubles boring.
Maybe you are right, but who i am. My suggestion means nothing. The only thing I can do is just to find a place to complain.
What in the world??... (sorry 2cents, but i'm reading esp. the last paragraph)... ...heh??? ...huh???......will this be one of the signs of the time??..
Yeah I agree, the level of China's team is sort of like a level for other countries to aim for. It's easier to reach something if you know what you're aiming for . Besides if China has worked hard they deserve to win the Sudirman Cup. It shouldn't be cancelled because a certain country is a favourite for the title. It's also not completely certain they will win. A lot can change in a short time (not saying it will but you never know). I mean look at KKK/TBH, a new pairing and they have already won the AG and beaten TG/CW. Still I think a Hopman Cup style tournament would be very interesting in Badminton . Oh and baseline Tennis is rubbish. It's far more interesting when they have the guts to go into the net .
I dont think there is anything wrong with the SC format. The fact that there is no other sports competition like that only mean that it is unique, but that does not mean that SD should not exist. The good thing about SC format is it allows a nation to show how all rounded badminton has developed in the country. Without an all-rounded development plan and enough participation from the mess, one cannot produce a team that stand a good chance to win to all disciplines of MS, MD, WS, WD and XD. China happens to dominate most of the fields (I said most, because China does not gurantee to win MS, MD and XD) and the team is more evenly balanced than other countries, that give them a higher chance to win the competition. Instead of questioning the competition format itself, I would argue that for other nations badminton associations to check if they do have a good spread of their focus and resources in developing badminton to all genders. As for the modified Hopman Cup style suggested by 2cents, I am not sure how sexual orientation has to do with badminton or any sports, but any competition using that as basis is only for novelty sake. It may surely generate enough headlines, but they may not be for the right reasons.
Well, the players you mentioned were never top double players. True, single players are getting harder to play at the net because the new rackets creating so much power that the passing shots are liked bullets. But double in tennis is different. Two 6'3" players standing in front of the net can block almost every shots back. That's why the top double players have to play serve and volley.
What is wrong with team format based on nations? Thomas Cup, Uber Cup, World Cup, many Olympic events etc. are team events based on nations. Based on your reasoning, Uber Cup should be even more qualified for elimination. China is even more assured of winning the Uber rather than the Sudirman. Anyway, how do you judge that someone is dominant before the event? Why penalise the dominant team from winning something? Let's get this straight. Hopman Cup is a competition between nations. The competing couple must be from the same nation. Sudirman Cup is nothing like the Hopman; badminton nations take the Sudirman Cup much more seriously. It's alright to think doubles are inferior to singles (they all can't be equal), but they are still worth an Olympic event, including XD. Olympics have scrapped XD in tennis and table tennis, but badminton XD is deemed worthy, for now. Interesting point, although note that using sexual orientation will not help to promote your point. In badminton, as in tennis, players are usually specialised in either singles or doubles, especially for the top players. In top-level Davis Cup, Fed Cup Thomas Cup, Uber Cup, a lot of the doubles are played by doubles specialists. The exception is that mixed doubles is not a regular event in tennis. The men and women tour separately, except for Grand Slam events, perhaps the only events to feature XD. Since the forming of an XD partnership is ad-hoc anyway, therefore, Hopman Cup is possible. But due to its ad-hoc basis, it is not taken as seriously as Davis or Fed Cup. Same goes for badminton. If Lin Dan were to form a partnership with Xie Xingfang, I admit it will be very interesting, but no one will take the results that seriously.
"indra" is not a good example. It is an extreme example. That's a huge brush you are painting all of us with. It is not black and white. It is grey. Sports enthusiasts tend to find someone to support. The easiest that comes to mind would be your fellow countrymen, if they are any good in the sport. Of course, there are also those who are purely just patriotic and not really sports fans. Most people fall somewhere in between, and it's a huge range.
I am very confuse with 2cents arguments. If I am right, you're against China dominant in SD cup ? then it is not a strong base for your argument !, Hopman cup style of Badminton is hard because not too many players play both single and doubles. And please don't be prejudice to other gender.
mine is like this MS: CHN 50 - INA 50 MD: CHN 50 - INA 50 WS: CHN 65 - INA 35 WD: CHN 65 - INA 35 XD: CHN 50 - INA 50
First, I should say you pointed out something important but missing in the ranking. Then, if count average points per tournament, in mixed double, Zheng Bo/Gao Ling should be the No. 1 (still Chinese from mainland China) while XZB/ZYW is the 2nd. Here is the ranking after your correction method: 1) Zheng Bo/Gao Ling: 9200 points/tournament 2) XIE Zhongbo/ZHANG Yawen: 6753 points/tournament 3) WIDIANTO Nova/NATSIR Lilyana: 6569 points/tournament 4) ROBERTSON Nathan/EMMS Gail: 6145 points/tournament 5) PRAPAKAMOL Sudket/THOUNGTHONGKAM Saralee: 5749 points/tournament
Tennis is 100% professional sport and very individual (country never deep-involved to manage its tennis-athlete). Sport-freaks never care where one tennis player coming from. Meanwhile badminton is vice versa. No wonder, it's so rare find big names to participate in team-championship (Davis-Fed-Hopman) because GrandSlam is more important than team-competition. Probably the tennis pro doesn't take seriously if they win or lose in team event, no 'huge money' as one main reason. In badminton so far, nationalism is #1.Thomas-Uber-Sudirman Cup plus Gold Medal in multisport event are more priceless (although no prize-money) than 6* GP tourney. Where will badminton going further? Copycat to tennis? Maybe, major Asia countries love the current format of SC, don't know about opinion from western-countries. The problem of lack interesting to watch SC recently : one country (CHN) is too powerful/extra strong. I didn't think SC was boring 10 or 12 years ago when CHN-INA-KOR-DEN were very balance in 5 sectors. So, is the format need to change because we can easy to predict (on paper) who will grab the next SC? No need, I guess. Dare for the others how to shock CHN! The reason for all shuttlers to compete in team-event (TUC/SC) is make their country/nation glorious not just-for-fun like invitational tournament. I guess order to play for upcoming SC similar w/ the previous : XD-MS-WS-MD-WD. 2 divisions are all the way for CHN, the contenders 'only' try to get points in another 3.
That's definitely not the case with me. As much as I would like New Zealand to be a top badminton nation... it's not. I cheer on players from many different countries. However I still don't see what's so wrong with competing countries. A Hopman Cup style tournament could be totally dominated by a single pair, then what would be the difference? I like the Sudirman Cup partly because it gives a pretty accurate idea of where each country ranks overall. I think it also makes it more important to countries not to simply focus on one game (Singles, Doubles etc.) or player, but rather to build up a good team.
Simply averaging points cannot work because: 1. KKK/TBH and ZB/GL would shoot straight to World #1 after only one (or a few) tournaments. 2. Players will not want to attend minor tournaments, including home ones, although it can be circumvented by other rules besides averaging. Most ranking systems I know do not use averaging. One system that I know of (WISPA - female squash tour) uses averaging (with minimum number of tournaments imposed), and has a flaw (the #2 flaw mentioned above).
I like the Sudirman Cup because of the sheer unpredictability (especially for someone who roots for Malaysia). In Thomas and Uber Cup, we more of less can give a pretty accurate guess on who will win because the pecking order is more well-defined. The mixed format of the Sudirman Cup makes it unpredictable. Except for China matches, the competition can be very unpredictable. It also allows smaller countries to do well. Some countries have strong #1s but rather weak down the order. They cannot do well in Thomas/Uber but Sudirman is a different case. eg. Thailand, don't have much depth, but their #1s are pretty world class. Also, Sudirman is the only team tournament that involves mixed doubles.
it is kinda boring if CHI is the one always winning all the tournaments. but we juz cant deny that how good the CHI players are. It has the similarity with Michael Schumacher keep on winning the GP after GP after GP until Alonso started to shine and competed with him for the top spot. That were the nicest moments to watch F1.
I guess that shows that even the mighty can be humbled. In every case, there is always someone better waiting to take your place, be it in F1 or badminton. No, I don't think the Sudirman Cup is boring at all. I quite agree with hcyong that there is a certain amount of unpredictability in it. I would say that if the next Sudirman Cup final featured MAS v CHN, you would not be too disappointed if the MAS team gave the CHN team a good run for their money and went down 2-3. That would indicate progress on behalf of the MAS team
If that is so..then china wont have to go full force..It proves that china still feels some tension going on between them n indonesia..