All England 1985 propelled CHN rookie, 20 years old Zhao Jianhua into the stardom, stunned highly favourite Morten Frost Hansen at that time. Incidentally Zhao JH hometown is same with newly-minted AE champion Shi Yuqi, Nantong-Jiangsu.
Every one is obsessed with finding the right/best XD partner for Zheng Siwei -- but no one wants to say the obvious (for fear of upsetting his precious heart or rabid female fans?)... The problems in Zheng Siwei's XD efforts failing at the last leg during major tournaments (World Championship, Sudirman Cup, All England, etc.) is Zheng Siwei himself. Just to be clear, we're not talking about bad players here -- Zheng Siwei, Chen Qingchen, Huang Yaqiong are all top-tier XD players -- but their sheer competitiveness, if you will, against other equally if nor more well-trained, instructed or talented players "in a crunch" is in question here. And to be specific, the problem is that CHN plays ZSW in traditional "front W + Back M" style -- which exposed his (relative, of course) weaknesses as early as in the 2017 Sudirman Cup Semi-Final against JPN's Watanabe/Higashino; E.g.: (1) ZSW's backhand is weaker than his forehand -- which creates an exploit for your opponents since the Back M player must move and cover both the forehand AND backhand HIMSELF in "front W + Back M" style; (2) ZSW's soft shots/skills are weaker than his hard drives/smashes -- which again creates an exploit for your opponents since the Back M player has the more difficult task of playing soft shots/skills FROM THE BACK in "front W + Back M" style; (3) IOW, (1) + (2) means ZSW's backhand soft shots are doubly easy to exploit -- just play soft smashes/drives to ZSW's backhand in the back of the court which gives him no speed/momentum to feed off, and be ready to exploit his (relatively, of course) loose/weak return (usually a cross to buy himself more time). All the whining (especially the 3-corner fault-finding debates between ZSW vs CQC vs HYQ supporters) over Chen Qingchen and Huang Yaqiong is meaningless in the "front W + Back M" XD style because the front W player is BY DESIGN tasked ONLY to (1) cover and kill any weak/loose shots/returns set-up or created BY the Back M player and/or (2) set-up or create weak/loose shots/returns FOR the Back M player... Which is why THA (Dechapol/Sapsiree), KOR (Choi/Chae) and JPN (Watanabe/Higashino) have all innovated and begun training/fielding W players who can smash/defend effectively (front AND back) + M players who can drop/drive deceptively (front AND back) in XD pairings with more rotational and left-right play (like WD/MD) -- but I guess it still hurts the feelings of CHN coaches/players/fans to admit Jeremy Gan (JPN's new XD coach from Malaysia) understands XD more than them?
Zhao was born in April 65 , and won the All England title when he was still 19. Can anyone confirm If he is the youngest men single champion, or not?
I guess the difficulty is for China is to find a men's double player who can be equally comfortable There are not that many around.
Rudy Hartono is actually the youngest to win men's singles title. Born in 18 August 1949, he won his first All England title in 1968 (he was 18 years old).
Yeah, that's why they are handling Zheng Siwei with care, like Zhang Nan, and letting them run through CHN's best XD women players -- they are rare talents with very pronounced specialities as well as handicaps. Though it's understandable to see CHN trying to find another Zhao Yunlei to complement Zhang Nan's quick/flat drives or make up for Zhang Nan's lack of a hard smash -- since Zhang Nan is a matured/veteran player who can't be expected to start playing in a completely different way... But isn't it a bit disturbing to see CHN using frequent changes of doubles partners to get "instant/ sure wins", instead of teaching/training their young players (Zheng Siwei/Chen Qingchen & Lu Kai/Huang Yaqiong were already World Rank No.1 & No.2 XDs!) to improve their game against different opponents/play-styles and wean them from their reliance on a hard smash?
ZSW defense is not good enough. His hand is so awkward when he tries to lift a shuttle which means if you limit his attack, you can beat him. and i feel like he is skinnier than before. skinnier as in more pale.
At his age and at this stage of his career, I would place the blame squarely on the type of coaching or training he's been getting... You can tell from the on-court coaching during intervals that CHN coaching is more about aggression/ domination than anything else, which is a great contrast against the "enjoy the game and play them with a smile" (HKG Tang/Tse) or "stay cool and play the game with your mind" (JPN Watanabe/Higashino) ethos -- so it's no surprise that Zheng Siwei is more famous for "domination wins" while HKG (Tang/Tse) and JPN (Watanabe/Higashino) have produced the "comeback kings/queens". This is partly due to the population bonus CHN used to enjoy (if you're not strong/fast enough, you'll just be dropped in favour of another player), whereas the SEA badminton (HKG & JPN have M'sian/Indonesian doubles coaches) makes an art out of rallying and spinning your opponents around...
I wouldn't say they stayed cool. In fact, their trump was pumping up the intensity. Both at the Sudiman Cup and at the All England
Which makes it quite interesting on how this generation of China coaches are going to adapt. They only know the old hard system.
Oh, they stayed cool alright -- just like CHN, you are confusing being fast with being aggressive and staying cool with being defensive... Look at how the WR No.1 INA MD and other SEA doubles play: like Fernandi/Sukamojo, the "cooler" they are, the faster they play/react -- VS Goh/Tan, the "hotter" they get, the more hesitant they play... JPN's XD coach, Jeremy Gan, was telling Watanabe/Higashino to "chotto... choto matte" all the time in Game 2 & 3.
No real changes so far -- as current singles and double head coaches came out of and mostly succeeded Li Yongbo's decade-old system (coaches still get a direct cut of players' prizes)... not to mention that the CURRENT generation of juniors were in fact trained/selected under Li Yongbo's decade-old system. E.g. Chen Yufei (He Bingjiao, Chen Xiaoxin, Gao Fangjie, etc.) follows in the mould of lanky, powerful WS like Zhang Ning, Xie Xingfan, Wang Yihan, Li Xuerui, etc. -- which is not a bad thing, except that the ONLY mould they have -- and it is useless against runners like Okuhara & Yamaguchi and not always competitive against creative players like Tai and Intanon.... Not even the likes of Wang Shixian, Wang Xin, etc. can be seen in CHN current WS... and the similar trends can be seen in the other individual events. I mean, CHN use to have at least Zhang Nan/Zhao Yunlei (left-right/ rotational) and Xu Chen/Ma Jin (tall-short/ front-back) playing in 2 different formations; whereas now even the average stature of Zheng Siwei is supposed to play front W-back M like the giant Lu Kai -- and even the shorter Chen Qingchen/Jia Yifan are supposed to play power-smashing WDs like the tall Luo sisters (who lasted just about one Olympic cycle)... So it seems like CHN badminton are squeezing everything they can out of the younger generation as fast as they can -- like they did in last Olympic Cycle. I think, like INA & MAS, they're going to have to lose a lot more before they really start re-thinking things.
Well I wasn't surprised there were no antics this time. Somehow he only does it with certain pairs that annoys him during the match. Though against Li/Liu and Con/Kol (Liu and Conrad in particular) had become somehow a routine though, I have no exact ideas of what they had ever done that set him off the first place in the past. We can only speculate. You know what, I have just got too used to those antics that I feel something huge is missing whenever a match goes too peaceful . And I personally don't think those antics as being disrespectful at all. Annoying perhaps. It is after all, part of the sport. I guess it might be a cultural thing. It is interesting to see that people in different cultures (societies) have different view of what are "respectful" and "disrespectful" acts. Where I brought up showboating or cheekiness are considered normal in games or sports. But addressing older people by their names without their title or talking back or even arguing with them for examples, are considered very disrespectful or even unforgivable acts. I know in some cultures casually calling people by their names are normal and friendly. Just like how people in some cultures still perceive tattooed people = gangsters, pierced or hair dyed people = drop outs, showing skins = whores, and so on. It might sound outrageous and unbelievable but you will never know with people. I only dyed my hair red once, and it caused me a lot of troubles dealing with some people (officials too). Prejudice exists everywhere.