China sent its smal, 2nd class team to this year Swiss open. None of its players seem to be even in National's Thompson cup squad or Uber cup squad. Many players even had to play in the qualification round first in Swiss open, and also the size of this team is quite small (for example only 1 new scratch in Mixed double) comparing to huge and high profile repsentations from Malaysia, Korea, Denmark, England,....

With this small, spare tires, China can still dominante in this year Swiss Open. Those players, 2nd class in China, but still the best in the world. They claimed most finalists and semi-finalists. By yesterday, semi-finalists distributions were:

China: 6 semi-finalists in 5 events
Malaysia: 4 semi-finalists in 3 events
England: 3 semi-finalists in 1 event
Denmark 2 semi-finalists in 2 events
Korea 2 semi-finalists in 2 events

Many people predicted China will be halted in semis, But now even the semis is not finished, check again:

China: 4 finalists + (with 1 pair withdraw, and 1 pair in fighting)
Malaysia: 2 finalists (1 pair advanced w/o fighting)
England: 1 finalist + (1 pair in fighting)
Denmark: 0 + ( 1 pair in fighting)
Korea: 0 + (1 pair in fighting)

indeed they are having a very good outing, however it must be noted that the very top indonesian players were not there to challenge in the mens' and mixed events. we all know the chinese dominate the ladies events, they've got the LD title and runner up already, even with pretty much the full field present (apart from the other chinese pairs). Also no excuses in WS, such as "playing loads of chinese players just to get to the final" :p

the semifinal spot for sang/zheng is not too bad, but that would be unlikely if the other top players were around. good performance by xia, wonder how well he is able to cope with LCW tomorrow.....considering that people were commenting on PG playing near his best, his semi final victory is quite an achievement.

mixed...well even without the walkover they would have lost i think to nathan and gail. however they were consistent enough to reach the semis, which does take some doing even if 3 dangerous pairs are missing.

all in all, a good start...hope the 1st team players are improving as well:D

indeed they are having a very good outing, however it must be noted that the very top indonesian players were not there to challenge in the mens' and mixed events. we all know the chinese dominate the ladies events, they've got the LD title and runner up already, even with pretty much the full field present (apart from the other chinese pairs). Also no excuses in WS, such as "playing loads of chinese players just to get to the final" :p

the semifinal spot for sang/zheng is not too bad, but that would be unlikely if the other top players were around. good performance by xia, wonder how well he is able to cope with LCW tomorrow.....considering that people were commenting on PG playing near his best, his semi final victory is quite an achievement.

mixed...well even without the walkover they would have lost i think to nathan and gail. however they were consistent enough to reach the semis, which does take some doing even if 3 dangerous pairs are missing.

all in all, a good start...hope the 1st team players are improving as well:D

I agree with you that ina has Taufik and high quality men's doubles. For mixed doubles, some ina players ranked high, but not that competitive. With many retirements and adjusts on both China and Korea, Ina XD merged a little bit, but their level of playing has not improved much.

Thats true with other sports that China dominates such as table tennis and diving. I just saw on TV few days ago a sport documentary about Chen Liang, one of China's top divers. He made a comment "its more competitive and challenging to compete in China national championship than World Championship because there are too many good divers from China....". I am not surprised that will become more obvious in badminton in the future that China is able to send its second class national squads and still be able to dominate the event.

While it is true, Team China is impressive, you have to remember China has ~1.3 billion people to work with. If you want a truly impressive country, check out Denmark with a total population of ~5.4 million; they put out some seriously good players relatively speaking.

While it is true, Team China is impressive, you have to remember China has ~1.3 billion people to work with. If you want a truly impressive country, check out Denmark with a total population of ~5.4 million; they put out some seriously good players relatively speaking.

What you said sounds reasonable but actually not. You'd better compare China with the whole Europe plus American Continent plus African Continent. Are the populations comparable? China is still much better than those together. Count the total gold modals in all tournaments, China may be better than all rest of the world.

On the other hand, China even with its 1.2 billion population, but send only a small participants in the tournaments. If they occupy 25% of the entries, they will claim more.

Denmark, even though a small country in Europe, but strong badminton power house even in Europe. Let's look a city in China, Nanjing, which is not that good in badminton. In China, people learnt playing badminton from Chinese returned back from Indonesia since 50s. Those people live in GuangDong (Canton) and Fujian, so Canton and Fujian are always strong in badminton. But a city like Nanjing in the north, less population than Denmark, no body knew how to play badminton before. Even the professionals learnt how to play by reading badminton books for kids. Such a city, has produced Yang Yang(a Nanjing local native), and trained Zhao jianhua(suburb of Nanjing), those two most talented players in history. Others including Sun Jun (Word Champ), his wife Ge Fei (probably the most unbeatable, I know not perfect) and Gu Jun(unbeatable), and a lot more in history. Even today, Lin Dan was long time trained in Nanjing, and Zhang Jun (world champ, twice Olympics Champs), Cai Yun too, Chen Jin (new up rising star) was not born in Nanjing, but raised there. I cannot remember all of them, just name a few. Anyway, I think, just a city like Nanjing (not a badminton city in China) has achieved more than Danes. Guangdong (Canton) and Fujian, those badminton provinces/cities must be much better. Many small regions in China could be more impressive than Denmark, which is, of course, the most impressive in Europe.

Forget to mention, there are a lot players could be even better, but limit to the opportunities to play internaitonal, their names are not known. A rich and free country, like Denmark, players have much, much more opportunies than those hidden talents in the schools of Nanjing.

I can only say something about Nanjing, because I don't know other cities. I was graduated from the same high school as Yang Yang. I learnt some badminton from my high school coach Chen who coached Yang Yang before. Coach Chen's son Chen JB was also a very talented player, because of many reasons he gave up. If Chen JB had been born in Denmark, he world have been a world champ probably. If we say Denmark provides more opportunities, definitely! if we say Danes are the most impressive, my answer is no.

Absolutely correct on Denmark and for that matter, even more so, NZ. With 3 million people, they have more Olympic medals/residents and excelled in so many sports at world class level.

China's situtaion with badminton is reminiscent of Indonesia in the 80's with men singles. There were just too many good men single players then that players of fabulous ability could not get into and stay in their national team (such as Fung Permadi, who went on to great things with Taiwan).

China: 6 semi-finalists in 5 events
Malaysia: 4 semi-finalists in 3 events
England: 3 semi-finalists in 1 event
Denmark 2 semi-finalists in 2 events
Korea 2 semi-finalists in 2 events


I feel you have to look at it in more detail.

First let's take a look at the women's events.

In WD, Zhang Dan/Zhang Yawen and Wei Yili/Zhao Tingting were all top class players anyway. They could even trouble Gao/Huang. Zhang Dan/Zhao Tingting should be no different except they have to get used to each other. Du/Yu (the second seeds) are also a formidable pair and I think this year, they will come into the picture more forcefully. The Chinese WD have so much strength in depth that outside of China, perhaps only Lee KW/Lee HJ can stop them. I am not altogether surprised to see an all-Chinese affair.

It's almost the same story for WS. Although I am surprised that Pi lost to Zhu Lin, but we now have to think in different terms. Zhu Lin could already be the third singles player for China (in terms of ranking, she is still behind Zhou Mi, but you may be wondering who will take third spot in the Uber Cup team this year). When do we ever look lightly at a Chinese 3rd single? During the times when Zhou was great (and she could still come back), she was expected to win tournaments whenever Zhang and Xie were absent.

So, that accounts for 3 of the 6 Chinese semi-finalists (and 3 of the finalists as well).

In the XD, after Zheng/Zhao beat Anggun/Tetty in the opening round (which most of us half expected anyway), are we that surprised that they got to the semi-finals? We all know Zheng and Zhao are good enough players.

Same goes for MD. Sang/Zheng are not the top MD in China, but being second is good enough.

Finally, in the MS, I have to say I am surprised Xia got this far. Most of us are pleasantly surprised, but we are not shocked. We know what a legend Xia is. Just because his days seemed to be over, but he is still in prime playing age. Wong CH could also surprise us from time to time.

In conclusion, China may have sent a second string, but their strength in depth (especially their women) is enough to give a good showing.

Agreed completey with what you have written in your post.

China's strength and depth in WD is undeniable. They have the world's top 5 players (excluding Lee/Lee). Yang Wei/Zhang Jiewen is almost invisible, with Gao Ling/Huang Sui slightly on the wane now (but still performing). They broke up the two old pairing of Wei Yili/Zhao Tingting and Zhang Dan/Zhang Yawen because Wei/Zhao was also not performing well recently. Despite that, these 2 pairs are world-class standard. Of course, you still have to count the ever-improving Du Jing/Yu Yang. Therefore, even without looking at the draw, its almost certain that the pairs sent to the Swiss Open will at least reach the semi-final with only Lee/Lee the only obstacle to another title.

I already wrote in my earlier post that Zheng Bo/Zhao Tingting is one of the pair to watch out for this year. It's almost certain that they will reach the top 4 or 5 in no time. Anggun/Yunita had the worst nightmare in drawing them in the first round and once they lost, there's no pairs which can prevent the Chinese pair reaching at least the semi-final.

As for Sang Yang/Zheng Bo, they are still not as good as Cai Yun/Fu Haifeng. I believe they will lose to any of the top 5 ranked pairs.

Agreed completey with what you have written in your post.

China's strength and depth in WD is undeniable. They have the world's top 5 players (excluding Lee/Lee). Yang Wei/Zhang Jiewen is almost invisible, with Gao Ling/Huang Sui slightly on the wane now (but still performing). They broke up the two old pairing of Wei Yili/Zhao Tingting and Zhang Dan/Zhang Yawen because Wei/Zhao was also not performing well recently. Despite that, these 2 pairs are world-class standard. Of course, you still have to count the ever-improving Du Jing/Yu Yang. Therefore, even without looking at the draw, its almost certain that the pairs sent to the Swiss Open will at least reach the semi-final with only Lee/Lee the only obstacle to another title.

I already wrote in my earlier post that Zheng Bo/Zhao Tingting is one of the pair to watch out for this year. It's almost certain that they will reach the top 4 or 5 in no time. Anggun/Yunita had the worst nightmare in drawing them in the first round and once they lost, there's no pairs which can prevent the Chinese pair reaching at least the semi-final.

As for Sang Yang/Zheng Bo, they are still not as good as Cai Yun/Fu Haifeng. I believe they will lose to any of the top 5 ranked pairs.

No doubt china has great depth, especially in WD, MS and WS, as for MD and XD i think they have a lot of great pairs, but all the other countries in the world also have their top pairs, MD there is Indonesia with Sigit/Candra, Denmark have Lundgaard/Eriksen and by the looks of it Boe/Mogensen altho we didn't seem them meet any top class (cai/fu, sigit/candra, etc. etc) at the swiss open, but they are young and will improve. JR and Lars also have new partners and i wouldn't be surprised to see them do brilliantly - i think thomas and lars particulary will go up the rankings very quickly..

in XD - well england proved they have 3 great pairs at the swiss open and two maybe three more on the way. Roberston/Emms were in a league of their own at the swiss open, but Blair/Munt and Clark/Kellog really showed that they can mix it in the top 10 if not the top 5. China have some new pairs, Zhang/Gao seem to be waning at the moment, i've not seen any brilliant results from them recently. but ZHeng Bo/Zhao TT are a good mix, i'm sure they will be the new Zhang/Gao either them or Zhongbo/Jawen. in the rest of the world tho there is obivously Thomas/Kamilla and Jens/Mette from Denmark - not forgetting the new pairs of Lars/Helene and Jonas/Britta - Lars and Helen have already has good results. Lee/Lee from Korea are quite a force too, and of course there's Nova/Liliyana and Sudket and Saralee sitting happily in the top 5 too.

a great number of brilliant mixed pairings.. i think mixed will be the most exciting battle between the countries this year.. there is certainly no domninant country in that discipline.

Coops

No doubt china has great depth, especially in WD, MS and WS, as for MD and XD i think they have a lot of great pairs, but all the other countries in the world also have their top pairs, MD there is Indonesia with Sigit/Candra, Denmark have Lundgaard/Eriksen and by the looks of it Boe/Mogensen altho we didn't seem them meet any top class (cai/fu, sigit/candra, etc. etc) at the swiss open, but they are young and will improve. JR and Lars also have new partners and i wouldn't be surprised to see them do brilliantly - i think thomas and lars particulary will go up the rankings very quickly..

in XD - well england proved they have 3 great pairs at the swiss open and two maybe three more on the way. Roberston/Emms were in a league of their own at the swiss open, but Blair/Munt and Clark/Kellog really showed that they can mix it in the top 10 if not the top 5. China have some new pairs, Zhang/Gao seem to be waning at the moment, i've not seen any brilliant results from them recently. but ZHeng Bo/Zhao TT are a good mix, i'm sure they will be the new Zhang/Gao either them or Zhongbo/Jawen. in the rest of the world tho there is obivously Thomas/Kamilla and Jens/Mette from Denmark - not forgetting the new pairs of Lars/Helene and Jonas/Britta - Lars and Helen have already has good results. Lee/Lee from Korea are quite a force too, and of course there's Nova/Liliyana and Sudket and Saralee sitting happily in the top 5 too.

a great number of brilliant mixed pairings.. i think mixed will be the most exciting battle between the countries this year.. there is certainly no domninant country in that discipline.

Coops

Interesting point about mxd.

Mxd appear to be the most interesting category at the moment. A lot of countries feature prominently in this event. It is always refreshing to see countries like uk / thailand / even new zealand do well and make a nice change from the usual china / denmark / korea / indonesia domination.

Robertson / Emms are the best in the world now. This combination is interesting because whilst they are both established men and women double players, neither are anywhere near the best in either categories. It just goes to show that with good training and tactical awareness, you can succeed in mixed double. I think Robertson made a very wise choice in concentrating just on mixed double. Why bother having mediocre performances in men doubles when he can have a very realistic chance of achieving gold at the Olympics / world championship ? Perhaps Gail Emms should also consider giving up women doubles (after the Commonwealth Games- where she has a good chance to medal) and saving all her energy on achieving dominance in mxd.

Perhaps Gail Emms should also consider giving up women doubles (after the Commonwealth Games- where she has a good chance to medal) and saving all her energy on achieving dominance in mxd.


hmm.. interesting point - but i think it's better for men to concentrate on mixed, but not ladies.. look at Ra, Gao Ling, Zhao Ting Ting.. all top class ladies and mixed players..

if you look at their partners there aren't many top class men's doubles players there..

Coops

What you said sounds reasonable but actually not.

How can what I said not be "reasonable"? It's fact: China has ~1.3 billion people and Denmark has ~5.4 million.

Relatively speaking Denmark is very impressive. If Denmark had ~1.3 billion people to work with, it would dominate everything (based on this ratio). Again, relatively speaking.

:D

i think what dink is trying to say is that since china have something like a third of the worlds population, that effectively means that of any set of players for any sport there should be a chinese player for every two other players from around the world..

this means you would expect to see one or two players / pairs in the top 5 of every discipline and 3 perhaps 4 in the top 10.

denmark on the other hand with a population of just 5.4 million should be lucky to have one player / pair in the top 15.

but obviously this is just maths and doesn't take account of training, funding, facilities etc etc..

but given equivalent ttraining, funding, facilities the number of world class players a country can produce is going to come down to raw materials.. the population of the country.

hope this settles an argument..

Coops

i think what dink is trying to say is that since china have something like a third of the worlds population, that effectively means that of any set of players for any sport there should be a chinese player for every two other players from around the world..

this means you would expect to see one or two players / pairs in the top 5 of every discipline and 3 perhaps 4 in the top 10.

denmark on the other hand with a population of just 5.4 million should be lucky to have one player / pair in the top 15.

but obviously this is just maths and doesn't take account of training, funding, facilities etc etc..

but given equivalent ttraining, funding, facilities the number of world class players a country can produce is going to come down to raw materials.. the population of the country.

hope this settles an argument..

Coops


A couple more points to add to this. Chjina may have 1.3 billion people, 30% of them are in Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and a couple of other places that are extremely poor and with poor facilities. Then there is a nother huge proportion of farmers. So maybe there is only about 700-800 million potentials.
Of this total, a big chunk of them are more preocuppied in making a living than to excel in sports.
Comparatively in industrialised countries, the lower level needs are being satisfied so, a great % of the population actually have time and interest to excel in sports.
So I guessed when one often quote that China has 1/4 of the world population to choose from for its talents, it don't exactly work that way.
.......just my 2 cents.

A couple more points to add to this. Chjina may have 1.3 billion people, 30% of them are in Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and a couple of other places that are extremely poor and with poor facilities. Then there is a nother huge proportion of farmers. So maybe there is only about 700-800 million potentials.
Of this total, a big chunk of them are more preocuppied in making a living than to excel in sports.
Comparatively in industrialised countries, the lower level needs are being satisfied so, a great % of the population actually have time and interest to excel in sports.
So I guessed when one often quote that China has 1/4 of the world population to choose from for its talents, it don't exactly work that way.
.......just my 2 cents.

potential is potential..
just because one country has area's that are 'just' farmland or are very poor does not mean that another countries aren't either..

denmark and scandinavia in general is mostly unpopulated because of the mountainous terrain, and freezing temperatures.

so of that tine 5.4 milliion it is perhaps more like 4.5 - 5..

of that 4.5 - 5 there is guaranteed to be an equal amount that don't take there sport to the elite level..

China and denmark are easily compared because i believe that they probably share the same funding, facilities and training. But it is remarkable that given the difference in population that denmark has as many world class players as china.

don't get me wrong - i'm not trying to knock china down a peg or two.. it's just not surprising to me that they dominate the sport..

it wouldn't surprise me in a few years time if we see china at the top of medals tables for the olympics and other competitions..

it will slowly catch the other countries of the world at other sports, training facilities will appear for other sports, and china's higher population will take effect.

india will probably follow soon after since it is also a rapidly developing country with a large population..

it would be great to see the US use their size to take over the sport - since they have proved themselves capable of doing it in so many other sports....

altho i suppose in there eyes trying to become top at badminton is like chine trying to become top at baseball...

hmmm.. now there's an interesting thought..

Coops

A couple more points to add to this. Chjina may have 1.3 billion people, 30% of them are in Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and a couple of other places that are extremely poor and with poor facilities. Then there is a nother huge proportion of farmers. So maybe there is only about 700-800 million potentials.
Of this total, a big chunk of them are more preocuppied in making a living than to excel in sports.
Comparatively in industrialised countries, the lower level needs are being satisfied so, a great % of the population actually have time and interest to excel in sports.
So I guessed when one often quote that China has 1/4 of the world population to choose from for its talents, it don't exactly work that way.
.......just my 2 cents.

In fact, poverty is often an important factor for excelling in sport as sport is seen as the best way of getting a better life.
In wealthier environments, youngsters are a lot less willing to train hard for their sport and priority is given to studies, as having a pro sport career is seen as not very serious (at least by the parents ;) ).

A couple more points to add to this. Chjina may have 1.3 billion people, 30% of them are in Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and a couple of other places that are extremely poor and with poor facilities. Then there is a nother huge proportion of farmers. So maybe there is only about 700-800 million potentials.
Of this total, a big chunk of them are more preocuppied in making a living than to excel in sports.
Comparatively in industrialised countries, the lower level needs are being satisfied so, a great % of the population actually have time and interest to excel in sports.
So I guessed when one often quote that China has 1/4 of the world population to choose from for its talents, it don't exactly work that way.
.......just my 2 cents.

Even so, the talent pool will still be much larger than Denmark's. Don't forget Denmark's population is only 5.4 million which is less than 0.5% of China's. There are probably several cities which are more economically developed which have more people than the whole of Denmark. Look at Shanghai for instance. Its the biggest city in the world with more than 30m people, six times Denmark's population. What's more, parts of this city are looking very modern and upmarket so you can't say that its not industrialised.

Seven's point is very interesting. In fact I think what they do is send scouts all over China to look at how children work and use their abilities while working on the farms, and if they see potential, the scouts will take the kids off to a training centre regardless of whether they want to or not. This sounds pretty unbelievable and I'm not sure if its true but from what I've heard thats what they do.

i think what dink is trying to say is that since china have something like a third of the worlds population, that effectively means that of any set of players for any sport there should be a chinese player for every two other players from around the world..

Coops, exactly. :)

From another point of view, assume that China (1.3b) has to go against the rest of the world (5b). China is 4 times smaller than the rest of the world.

Sudirman Cup
MS - 50-50
WS - China
MD - ROW (Rest of world)
WD - China
XD - 50-50

Thomas Cup
MS (Lin, Bao, Chen v Gade, Taufik, Lee CW)
MD (Cai/Fu, Sang/Zheng v Chandra/Sigit, Danish pair)
I think it's either 3-2 or 4-1 for ROW.

Uber Cup
China 5-0 or 4-1. (ROW not allowed to use players born in China)

We can sense that China's weakest area is the MD (and even so, they have Cai/Fu). Overall, China is a match for ROW even though 4 times smaller.

You can count this way, but I think you should only count countries who play badminton competitively. (not counting Africa in ROW for ex)

If you count population of China vs population of Indonesia+Malaysia+South Korea+Denmark+England ... China still is the one with most population!

Of course, population is not sufficient to explain China's success, quality of coaching, infrastructures etc are important factors.
But it does help explaining why "second team" players can perform so well internationally.

Another way to look at it.

Imagine a school (A) has 1000 students.
Another school (B) has only 100.

If the top student from A goes head-to-head against his counterpart from B, the battle could be quite close. Perhaps A's top student is that little bit sharper, but you can imagine B winning.

If it is a team tournament consisting of top 5 or top 10 students, top v top, second v second etc., then one will favour A higher. So, having more students probably means having strength in depth, but its top student does not neccessarily beat the other top student.

Add in C, D, E and F, and each has 100 students. In an individual tournament, the chances of the top student from A winning becomes less.

I guess my conclusion is, there is a certain limit a player can reach. The chances of producing a superman for a country of 1 billion and a country of 1 million is the same: zero.

Due to the population, we can see these characteristics:
1. Players rarely last long. Young players push up and you are gone. These internal competition gives players a little competition edge but that does not mean they are much better than others. It is also harder to make a comeback.
2. Strong in depth. 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th players are quite strong compared to any other single nation.
3. You are not allowed to blossom late. Zhang Ning is an exception, but she managed to hang on all the while.

Actually, I don't know where my point is going, so I guess I will stop now.

Agree with you hcyong, I think your analogy is interesting and explains quite well the situation.
There are a few exceptions to your three last points luckily, and Xia's "comeback" at the Swiss Open is one of them! ;)

1. Players rarely last long. Young players push up and you are gone. These internal competition gives players a little competition edge but that does not mean they are much better than others. It is also harder to make a comeback.


Good point. We can see most of the CHN legends retire around 26-28, while many others from other nations do after 30. It's not like the ones from CHN are too weak to compete, actually, many of them can still perform to an acceptable standard. However, they just can't compete against their fellow younger generation any more. :cool:

During 1994 to 1998 era... Indonesia coach even proclaim they can win the thomas cup even if the rest of the world team up. If not mistaken they got like 6 out top 10 MS & 3 or 4 pair in top 10. I think that's the only time a country has been so dominat in thomas cup.

MS- Heryanto arbi, Joko, hermawan, marleve, bambang
MD- Rexy & ricky, candra & sigit, limpele & eng hian, tony & halim

if not mistaken :rolleyes:

During 1994 to 1998 era... Indonesia coach even proclaim they can win the thomas cup even if the rest of the world team up. If not mistaken they got like 6 out top 10 MS & 3 or 4 pair in top 10. I think that's the only time a country has been so dominat in thomas cup.

MS- Heryanto arbi, Joko, hermawan, marleve, bambang
MD- Rexy & ricky, candra & sigit, limpele & eng hian, tony & halim

if not mistaken :rolleyes:

The "group advantage" does not guarantee a team cup, otherwise, you will see CHN end up with Sudirman Cup every single time. Why? They always have at least 3 or 4 out of top 10 MS, 1 or 2 out of top 10 MD, maybe 4 or 5 out of top 10 in WS (because many others don't have chance to play), 4 or 5 out of top 10 in WD (same as WS), and 2 out of 10 in XD.

However, the problem is, no matter how many top ones you have, you can only send ONE for the cup match for a event. The top 1 might not be that much better than the other team's top one. Of course, if there are 15 matches instead of 5 matches, of course the one with the most depth will carry the cup each time. :p

From another point of view, assume that China (1.3b) has to go against the rest of the world (5b). China is 4 times smaller than the rest of the world.

Sudirman Cup
MS - 50-50
WS - China
MD - ROW (Rest of world)
WD - China
XD - 50-50

Thomas Cup
MS (Lin, Bao, Chen v Gade, Taufik, Lee CW)
MD (Cai/Fu, Sang/Zheng v Chandra/Sigit, Danish pair)
I think it's either 3-2 or 4-1 for ROW.

Uber Cup
China 5-0 or 4-1. (ROW not allowed to use players born in China)

We can sense that China's weakest area is the MD (and even so, they have Cai/Fu). Overall, China is a match for ROW even though 4 times smaller.

exactly! China could win Thomas Cup also with top single players.

China send a second squad to Swiss Open and also the same players play German Open, cause Li Yong Bo want to determine who will become China Thomas and Uber squad.

No wonder all the Chinese players do their best. With this result:

1. XXZ almost guarantee one spot in China Thomas Cup and if he minimal each German Open (where he will probably meet LD), it will be 100% guarantee. With this, China Thomas singles will be probably LD, BCL, CH, CJ and XXZ.

2. Sang Yang/Zheng Bo also had a good chance into Thomas squad. Not to mention they play very well n Thomas Cup 2004 where they never lost a point whenever they met any other countries double including Indonesia and Denmark.So the doubles probably will be Cai/Fu, Sang/Zheng and XieZB

3. Du/ Yu still not 100% in the Uber Cup squad cause China had 5 strong WD and they can only bring max 3 pairs. Gao/Huang and Yang/Zhang already grab the 2 spot. The remaining one spot will be determied whose pair can beat the Korean pair Lee/Lee . (In this case ZhaoTT/Zhang D already beat Lee/Lee once)
In German Open, WYL/ZYW will meet Lee/Lee in QF. That are their ultimate test.

4. Zhu Lin. She already 90% grab the Uber Cup spot as China third single and will be 100% if she can reach at least German Oen QF where she will meet PHY again. (If Zhou Mi didn't make a comeback) The last spot will be fought hard against Lu Lan, Jiang Yian Jiao and Wang Lin.

5. ZhaoTT/ Zheng B. I guess China really serious preparing their XD pairs to compete in 2008 Olympic. We still don't know if Zhang/Gao can hang on till 2008. If they can't, China already got Zhang/Xie and now ZhaoTT/Zheng B. Watch out for another pair in German Open Guo ZD/Yu Yang.

Meanwhile Indonesia still didn't have a fourth MS player for Thomas Cup. So we still stuck with Taufik, Sonny and Simon. And we cannot change this formula at all.

We all know Simon is a really terrible choice for third MS in team event. He never won a single point when we tied 2-2 in team event. He lost to China, Denmark and last year to Malaysian player easily in team event. So I don't know why PBSI didn't try to send more MS players after Simon Santoso. Who knows we will discover another good MS player?

In Uber Cup, probably PBSI already give up. We only send 2 WS and 1 WD players to 5 or 6 events a year. How willthe third single and the second doubles perform well in Uber Cup?

I am worried that we even can't qualified to final Uber Cup in Japan. Minus Japan as host and probably China as the Uber winner, we still had to fight Korea, Chinese Taipei, Singapore, Thailand , Hong Kong and now Malaysia. And from Asia zone only 4 team will make it to the main Uber Cup event.

If we fail to make it to Japan, I wonder what other excuses the PBSI official will made?

exactly! China could win Thomas Cup also with top single players.

I think it depends on the match-up, if Taufik moves up the ranking to face Lin Dan, the chance of Chinese winning could be very slim. The world team could get 2 or all 3 single points.

Taufik vs Lin - Taufik
Gade vs Bao/Chen - 50/50
Lee vs Bao/Chen - Lee

I think it depends on the match-up, if Taufik moves up the ranking to face Lin Dan, the chance of Chinese winning could be very slim. The world team could get 2 or all 3 single points.

Taufik vs Lin - Taufik
Gade vs Bao/Chen - 50/50
Lee vs Bao/Chen - Lee

I remember that Lin is ranked 1st, Bao is 2nd. Chen Hong won several big titles last year. :D is the current ibf web site ready to check?

Lin is kind of unbeatable, and eager to fight Taufik. It is Taufik shun away most of time when encounter is about to happen. :rolleyes:

As Gade vs Chen? I remember that both Chen Hong or Chen Jin just beat Gade recently. Correct me if I'm wrong.

As for Lee, vs Bao/Chen, do you have their head-to-heads? The current IBF site is down. Anyway, I'm always surprised every time Lee won. Lee looks fragile, how he can win those points. I mean he looks smart, but not that strong enough to guarantee a win. Both Chen Hong and Bao CL look very physically fit and skills ready.

Meanwhile Indonesia still didn't have a fourth MS player for Thomas Cup. So we still stuck with Taufik, Sonny and Simon. And we cannot change this formula at all.

We all know Simon is a really terrible choice for third MS in team event. He never won a single point when we tied 2-2 in team event. He lost to China, Denmark and last year to Malaysian player easily in team event. So I don't know why PBSI didn't try to send more MS players after Simon Santoso. Who knows we will discover another good MS player?

In Uber Cup, probably PBSI already give up. We only send 2 WS and 1 WD players to 5 or 6 events a year. How willthe third single and the second doubles perform well in Uber Cup?

I am worried that we even can't qualified to final Uber Cup in Japan. Minus Japan as host and probably China as the Uber winner, we still had to fight Korea, Chinese Taipei, Singapore, Thailand , Hong Kong and now Malaysia. And from Asia zone only 4 team will make it to the main Uber Cup event.

If we fail to make it to Japan, I wonder what other excuses the PBSI official will made?

I think Bola has already mentioned about the fourth Thomas Cup singles players. Its either Markus Wijanu or Faudzi Adnan.

Simon is still stuck at where he was 2 years ago and this is partly PBSI's fault! He only participated in a few tournaments last year. On the other hand, look at Chen Jin. He already has some good victories over the past year.

As for the Uber Cup, Maria Kristin is the default third singles player while the second doubles could probably be a combination of Lilyana Natsir and another player. Korea should reach the final, while Indonesia, Chinese Taipei, Singapore, Thailand, HK, and Malaysia will fight for the remaining 3 spots.

I am praying that the Uber Cup team has a favorable draw.

for the past few years indonesia & denmark hasnt got any promising youngster emerging for thomas cup. this trend is not good for badminton, I hope denmark can produce more young player to attract more european to badminton... :cool:

I don't know what the strategy of PBSI is. It seems that they give up for the Uber Cup. But for the Thomas Cup, it is stilla big question, who will be in the squad especially for 3rd and 4th men singles.
For MD, they have several pairs which are good, but still like Luluk/Alven have to improve their techniques and especially their mentality. And for the third pairs like Markis/Hendra, this will be their first time, so it will be a hard task for them. Flandy/Eng Hian..I am not sure about that.

The big problem is MS !! Taufik has a very big burden on him. Sony is still not stable yet, and he even could not beat any Chinese player recently, and against Kenneth Jonassen, still 50-50. As well against Korean Shon SM or Malaysian 2nd singles. Simon is still far away behind....lack of mentality...and experience....
So...Indonesian chance to wi back the Thomas Cup is not high, though it is possible, but China, Denmark have the bigger chance and MAlaysia, still 50-50 as well as Korean.

But let see what will happen in Jaipur. First Indonesia has to prove to be qualified to Japan. For Thomas Cup, I am sure they will, but Uber Cup, not underestimate them, but the chance is 50-50.

So, behind this, I think PBSI has the wrong policy when sending players abroad. They should change if they want to have a raising star again, especially MS, WS, WD. MD and XD should be more and more.

I think this year Uber Cup will still remain in China (maybe not necessary to be fought:D ) and Thomas Cup, I still think that China will retain and maybe Denmark or Malaysia could also win that. But Indonesia, they have a chance, but they need to improve within this 4 months. Hope they manage that.

for the past few years indonesia & denmark hasnt got any promising youngster emerging for thomas cup. this trend is not good for badminton, I hope denmark can produce more young player to attract more european to badminton... :cool:

their mens doubles pairs are very strong...too bad its not 3 doubles and 2 singles for the TC:o