At last, the final few want to see. Having seen Xia edging Jonassen, Xia is really a master in control in terms of pace , speed, stroke production etc, only lacks height and stamina. Misbun will probably tell Wong to stay on court as long as possible, Wong is no slouch eiter,after the way he fully exploited the injured Shon.The Msian squad is always in awe of Xia, seldom on Chen Hong. Will Zhang Ning score another love set victory as over Camilla and Mia, to end her career? Too bad Fu and Cai didn't squash Ina , too inexperienced. Zhao Jian Hua on ESPN compared playing Styles of Cai/Fu and Zheng /Sang, he was surprised that both Cai/Fu were singles players and assumed they were singles reejects. Zhao also mentioned that Zheng/Sang's non aggressive style without a big smash is a handicap.
Wong hasn't beaten Xia many times before. Wong's win was good, just the same style as his 2001 China Open win over Chen Hong. If Wong CH has a relative weakness, it must be his defence. Wonder how Xia can cope. Xia has had a nice rest in the s/f. Must be team orders. Bao vs Wong would be too risky.
Now it's up to Wong to prove to the Chinese how wrong they were to fix matches! Go, Wong!!! Slay the dragon!!!
SLAY THE DRAGON Not a good choice of words. To a Chinese the dragon is a symbol of their ancestry, Chinese always say they are descendants of the dragon. Therefore if a chinese says slay the dragon it is tantamount to cursing one's ancestors, ie.slay one's ancestors.Maybe some of the Chinese will retort by saying, slay the pig or sth but I'm sure they won't, being Chinese. In some religions if one says sth offensive to a certain religion,they could put a contract out for one's life, as Salman Rushdie.In Msia we are always reminded to be respectful of others.
The match between Xia and Wong Choon Han was good. I hoped that Wong CH can cause an upset... have to support my countrymen. hehehe.. If Xia would have plaed other .. i would have supported him. I think Xia performance have dropped a little. But he really dominate the 3rd set. WONG CH concentration was abit out on 3rd Set.
yeah! my main man xia is world champion at last. he deserved it. their match last night was one of the finest tactical matches i've seen so far.
Tactical is the word, point for point waiting for mistakes and opponent lapses.Fun to watch live, but not after.
I was supporting Wong Did Wong get the wrong advice from Misbun? He was able to take the 2nd set from Xia by using deception and holding the shuttle. He didn't do much of this in the 3rd set. I am surprised. This is the tactic employed by Hendrawan so effectively in beating Xia in the s/f Olympics, Thomas cup final.
Maybe xia improved on his stamina or conserved it better. his last fling you know, like Zhang Ning. On August 16 friendly between China Msia in KL, Ho Hum.
I agree with you cheung that WONG did not execute his deception during the third set. Maybe he was frustrated that he didn't move any points from 6 and also alot of judgements errors from the baseline plus Xia has already dominating the game from that point. I hope WONG will win agains't Xia in the next time they meet each other. I'm also looking foward for games between WONG and Bao Chunlai.. battle between lefthanders.
We need more MS for Malaysia, cannot just depend always on Wong, Hafiz or LEE. I am sure China have a set (or a few) of players just waiting to take over from Xia, Chen Hong and gang. Whatever it is, Wong has to go away and analyse this game properly. Look at the approach used by Kenneth Jonasen, Hendrawan at how they counter Xia. This cannot keep going on as Wong can never be a complete player by always losing to Xia. Chances are that they will cross swords again in next years olympics. Wong is one of the best players in the circuit at the moment, hope he keeps this momentum going for the coming tournaments.
Don't look to good. Not many players in back-up as talented or tall as Wong. I think Huge gap in singles. Some potential ones have already beem pinched by Yap to play doubles. Prospects for singles real bad,clearly seen in Juniors tours, good for doubles though, but most up and coming are small in stature.
Who are those boys who are being pinched to doubles? Not really that bad if the likes of Lee Chong Wei and Kuan Beng Hong could catch up within the next 1-2 years!
