Ooooooh you are talking about the old VA. This is the re-engineered VA - you should have already noticed in his last match against Momota. He is even better now.
The NBC livestream at the end (125.44), after CL vs ASG's match had some interviews of KC, VA, ASG, and CL. Interesting to hear their thoughts.
God knows how Kevin reached the SF in the Olympics, he never met a high ranked player until today with Victor. If it was a top tier BWF Tournament, he would be been knocked out in the first round! It makes the tournament a joke. Olympics gives Bye to top seeds, which I think is wrong. You should defeat your opponents to the Olympic Gold as its supposed to be the pinnacle for Badminton's top honor.
Well, he would have met Momota in place of Heo. And Kevin beat Mark (who beat Sai). So your argument is thumbs down. Btw Ng Ka Long must be top 100 player for you ?
To be fair, Kevin Cordon did much better against VA than Wang Tzu Wei and SYQ. Kevin Cordon was closer to taking set 1 against Viktor, something that Wang Tzu Wei and SYQ were not.
Kevin played really well throughout the whole tournament, winning all games in the group stage (including the match against seed No 8 NKL) and winning the QF afterwards. He did have quite luck with his draw, only having to play one seeded player (even if Momota had reached the QF, Kevin most likely would have won against the current Momota) but the same could have happened at any high calibar BWF tournament...
If knock-out format is implemented from the start, then Wang/Lee will be returning home after their 1st match. Momota will exit in round 2. Imagine you join a tournament as player ranked outside top 20, you beat a seeded player and others in between, reach the semi which no one has expected, even you. Will you wish people to remember and applause your effort and performance, or them to say it is a joke?
Is Kevin Cordon number 4 player in the world, or anywhere near it? No of course not. But upsets and chokes happen. It's the beauty of sport. Personally, I am happy for Cordon. What he's done is amazing. But that doesn't mean the system is as good as it can be. At the very least, giving winners of groups with #1 and #2 players a bye in the 1/8F is a joke.
Perhaps it is to reward the top 2 seeds, that if they qualify from the group, they will receive a bye in the round of 16. Or add 2 more groups next time (we'd see 6 more lower ranked players then). By the way Cordon did not receive a bye in the round of 16. WS follow the same format as MS, but we have #1 and #2 in the final, because they win their matches.
Yeah nothing against Cordon. The group stage matches are pretty boring. It'd be more fun to let more players in the tournament but have elimination games from day 1. Like in tennis. Perhaps we would see even more upsets.
Or the whole thing becomes a league where everyone play each other so more bado for us to watch I don't care if the Olympics become 3 months I've been deprived on competitions for so long and I can't even play myself anymore so.....
