Not sure about their effort as I didn't watch it, but the JAP may be conserving their energy for next week AE as they are the defending champions. Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk
Oh yeah, forgot to consider that. But, I think Yuta/Arisa are not really into that strategy yet because they are still young and can perform at their best playing consecutively in 2 weeks and still have hunger for many titles. Nevertheless, NED pair have beaten "quite" strong pairs in their earlier round in 2 straight games. Maybe their opponents were underperformed or maybe they really did well in this tournament. We'll see tomorrow if they could reach the final.
With Yuta/Arisa's loss, Japan has no chance to sweep all of 5 titles. The NED pair, Tabeling/Piek, are really the pair to watch. They have produce great result lately. Their next opponent is Hafiz/Gloria. I hope that the INA pair can take this chance to top the podium. Looking at the SF matches, if all of JPN players win today, there will be 4 all JPN matches in Final as they won't meet each other today, except one WD match.
I blame to time zone, 4h am for asia people is too late. Even I'm an audience but I was sleepy at Okuhara vs Ohori match and cannot watch the whole match. (I go to sleep at 2 pm)
Why time zone? It doesn't affect even a bit to any players. The players will play with normal time. What happen to us doesn't matter to these players.
SEMIFINAL (02.30pm) => https://www.tournamentsoftware.com/...4F7F0E-65BC-4F1E-A602-08ED7B5962A4&d=20190302 LIVE TV COVERAGE (Court 1) Men's singles top-two seeds Kento Momota and Chou Tien Chen stay on course to realize ideal final in this tournament. Momota outclasses teammate Kanta Tsuneyama, 21-12 / 21-9 while defending champion Chou takes revenge over Malaysian rookie Lee Zii Jia in two close games, 21-18 / 22-20. The World Champion is highly favoured to halt Danish veteran Hans Kristian Vittinghus run who played long duration match to eliminate the qualifier Soong Joo Ven at last eight. More interesting semifinal fixture will pit second seed Chou takes on the fast improved Kenta Nishimoto, last two encounters between these two players were going into full distance. Goh Jin Wei spoils top four seeds semifinal scenario, the Malaysian prodigy outlasts the vast experienced Zhang Beiwen in three games, the only quarterfinal tie which went to deciding game. WS big match is scheduled to play at TV Court, two former World Champions facing each other, top-seed Nozomi Okuhara will up against Ratchanok Intanon, the Japanese star won over the skillful Thai player in Guangzhou Finals end of 2018. Intanon has good start to begin this season, defended her MAS Masters crown in January. Reigning champion Akane Yamaguchi should be alert to 19 years old Goh who displaying tremendous development lately including outmaneuvered her at homeground Super 500 tournament lately. Japanese MD leading pairs will meet the unseeded combinations, Kamura/Sonoda versus Thai independent pair Isara/Jongjit who destroyed China youngters He JT/Tan Q, 21-12 / 21-11. Senior-junior partnerships Endo/Watanabe have Malaysian rivals to progress, Goh SF/Izzuddin. Will the underdogs deny all Japanese finals here? Symmetrically with women's doubles landscape, Japan has high potential to secure two final berths, Du Y/Li YH stun more-fancied Indonesians Polii/Rahayu in two straight-games and barricaded by three powerful WD pairs, Fukushima/Hirota, Matsutomo/Takahashi and Matsumoto/Nagahara. A slim chance that the Chinese can topple the very consistent world number one. Mixed doubles department presents huge upset that saw Netherlands duo shocked All England champion Watanabe/Higashino, 19-21 / 21-18 / 21-15 yesterday, what a breakthrough for the giant-killers Tabeling/Piek who will see Indonesia best hopefuls Faizal/Widjaja this evening. Korean left-hander pair Seo SJ/Chae YJ edge past second seed Puavaranukroh/Taerattanachai and have Malaysian challengers yet title-holder Goh SH/Shevon Lai to book back to back Super 300 final place.
Any ideas how the match of the day is selected? NO vs RI is a big match as the two players are the top 8 players, yet doesn't get selected as match of the day. I'm not complaining about why the MD match got selected.
Btw, @yuquall, you forgot to burninate this thread now that LD and Liu/Zhang is out. On a serious note, who will you root today?
I know right and they both had to lose in R2. Bummer Don't really have favorites here but I guess Kam/Son for MD, CTC for MS and TakaMatsu for WD? The usual members
