MEN'S SINGLES
Chen Hong vs Chen Jin
Very tough match. Can Chen Jin grab his first IBF title after he started to play last year? Chen Hong will not make it easy for him, that for sure. Chen Jin win in 3 sets.


MEN'S DOUBLES

Anthony Clark/Robert Blair VS Jung Jae Sung/Lee Yong Dae
This is a golden chance for the Korean to grab their first MD title. But it won't be easy cause the British pair improved a lot. Korean pair win in 3 sets.


WOMEN'S SINGLES
Zhang Ning VS Lu Lan .
Statistic said that ZN never lost to anybody except XXF last year. I am afraid this will be an easy match cause Lu Lan was already exhausted from previous long matches. ZN win in 2 sets



WOMEN’S DOUBLES


Gao Ling/Huang Sui vs Yang Wei/Zhang Jiewen
It will be really difficult for Gao/Huang to win against Yang/Zhang. Not to mention Gao Ling had to play XD. Yang/Zhang win in 2 sets.



MIXED DOUBLES

Xie Zhongbo/Zhang Yawen vs Zhang Jun/Gao Ling
Time to know who is the best XD in China team. The rising pair Xie/Zhang or the Olympics champion Zhang/Gao? Xie/Zhang win in 3 sets.

although there are 4 all-chinese finals, i think it is still exciting as there are 3 "new VS old" matches(MS, XD, WS)..
i hope Chen Hong, Lu Lan and Gao/Zhang can win..

for WD, i think Yang/Zhang can win Gao/Huang
for MD, dunno much abt both side, so netural this time..

WOMEN'S SINGLES
Zhang Ning VS Lu Lan .
Statistic said that ZN never lost to anybody except XXF last year. I am afraid this will be an easy match cause Lu Lan was already exhausted from previous long matches. ZN win in 2 sets



I thought Zhang Ning lost to Lu Lan quite easily last time in Chinese National Championship.. She lost in straight sets and the score of the second set is 11-1.

Who is Lu Lan :confused: ? She came out of the woodworks to make it into the finals beating several top players along the way. If this is what a Chinese junior/qualifier can do, the rest of the world is in trouble :crying: .

Who is Lu Lan :confused: ? She came out of the woodworks to make it into the finals beating several top players along the way. If this is what a Chinese junior/qualifier can do, the rest of the world is in trouble :crying: .

Lu Lan is a very talented Chinese junior player. She is one of the next rising stars from China I think, one of the most potential ones to replace Zhang Ning when she eventually retires.

Chen Hong is the team China Killer!! He always beats other members from team China! He is also the oldest except for Xia who hasn't had a great year. Its true, there is no substitute for experience. Chen Hong will win tommorow.

MEN'S SINGLES
Chen Hong vs Chen Jin
-- Despite Chen Jin's rising form, I still think Chen Hong can win. He has beaten Peter, Bao Chunlai, and Lin Dan lately and should beat his younger compatriot.


MEN'S DOUBLES

Anthony Clark/Robert Blair vs Jung Jae Sung/Lee Yong Dae
-- The Korean pair should win, but, the English pair is getting more dangerous. It's gonna be a thriller. The big question is have the Koreans settled for this pair after several trials and errors or are they still trying to play Jung Jae Sung with one other player? They have tried with Jung Jae Sung/Lee Jae Jin; Jung Jae Sung/Han Sang Hoon; and now Jung Jae Sung/Lee Yong Dae.

Yet, I still don't know any good reason why they break up Jung Jae Sung and Lee Jae Jin because I thought they are pretty lethal and promising. They have also risen pretty rapidly to top 10 within 1 year.


WOMEN'S SINGLES
Zhang Ning vs Lu Lan
-- Zhang Ning to win...possibly in 3 sets. China has so much talents in the women's singles and doubles that its impossible for the other countries to catch up with them. Their youngsters have beaten Pi Hongyan, Xu Huaiwen, Yao Jie, and Wang Chen lately. Not a good omen for badminton :mad:


WOMEN’S DOUBLES

Gao Ling/Huang Sui vs Yang Wei/Zhang Jiewen
-- Boring...boring....how many times have we seen Yang/Zhang vs Gao/Huang in final last year? Now, the 2 new pairings have also proved that they can beat Lee/Lee, the pair which is supposedly China's only threat to a medal in any tournament.


MIXED DOUBLES
Xie Zhongbo/Zhang Yawen vs Zhang Jun/Gao Ling
-- I pick Zhang/Gao to win because they are still...China's no 1 pair. Xie/Zhang is improving very fast and they are becoming a threat to any top pair. China has a few pairs in contention for the gold medal in Beijing Olympics 2008. Xie/Zhang definitely has the biggest chance because they are young and still on the rise.

Lu Lan beat Zhang Ning twice in the 10th National Games. Once in the team event and once in the individual event. The 10th National Games is a good measuring stick to measure the capabilities of the upcomers from China. To the Chinese the national games is just as important as the World Championships(more so for WS, WD).

Final

GAO/HUANG 15:3 won YANG/ZHANG in first set!

Final

GAO/HUANG 15:3 won YANG/ZHANG in first set!

Thatz a very convincing win !! :eek: :eek: :eek:
How did Gao/Huang pull away with such a big lead?? :confused:

Gao/Huang 1-2 Yang/Zhang (15:3,11:15,10:15)

Chen Jin took the 1st game !!! :D :D

15-3

Chen Jin leads 7-0 in 2nd set...

wot happen to Chen Hong?!:eek:

Looks like CJ is running away wif his 1st Yonex grand prix MS title !!!

Yannie!! Where r u ??? :D :D

Chen Jin won......... 15-3 15-7

Congrats manz !!! The new star to look out for in 2006 :)

Looks like CJ is running away wif his 1st Yonex grand prix MS title !!!


Chen Jin bagged French Open 2004 title prior to this.

Chen Jin bagged French Open 2004 title prior to this.

Thanks for pointing out... so perhaps shld add a 2006 to that.. :o

Anyway... Zhang Ning took 1st game 11-8

order is restored to the universe... Zhang Ning wins 11-8, 11-3

Chen Jin won......... 15-3 15-7

Congrats manz !!! The new star to look out for in 2006 :)


:rolleyes: That makes China team more stronger in MS event.
Hope they have more strong MD pairs as MS.

Looks like CJ is running away wif his 1st Yonex grand prix MS title !!!

Yannie!! Where r u ??? :D :D

Erm... I was following the match on the other comp while I was eating lunch!!! HAHAHA but I smsed CJ to say congratz... and he's very happy... extremely excited. Seems like he wanna take the AE title also :p

Gao/Zhang just won after a tight match. Incredible Gao! She just had 3 tough sets minutes ago.

Any reports on the match between 2 Chens. There must be something wrong with Chen Hong, like another Xia Xuanze at Swiss open.

haha...yannie must be very happy, rite?

Chen Jin will have tough matches in AE..1st round Hafiz, 3rd round most probably will be Boonsak PONSANA, and then Peter Gade in QF, also BAOBAO or Lee HI waiting for him in SF(actually i am worrying BAO's injury)..

add oil China's rising star!

haha...yannie must be very happy, rite?

Chen Jin will have tough matches in AE..1st round Hafiz, 3rd round most probably will be Boonsak PONSANA, and then Peter Gade in QF, also BAOBAO or Lee HI waiting for him in SF(actually i am worrying BAO's injury)..

add oil China's rising star!

He can beat Hafiz! He can beat Boonsak! He can beat Peter and Lee hyun Il..... I dunno if he can beat BaoBao... actually anyone knows about Bao's injury? I mean.. what happened actually and how is it now? :(

very happy that Zhang/Gao can win!!!!:D
yup..Gao Ling is incredible!! 2 tight matches in a short time!
(i am wondering why the German Open officials didn't put the XD into the last..as Gao is the one who need to play in 2 finals)

haha...yannie must be very happy, rite?

Chen Jin will have tough matches in AE..1st round Hafiz, 3rd round most probably will be Boonsak PONSANA, and then Peter Gade in QF, also BAOBAO or Lee HI waiting for him in SF(actually i am worrying BAO's injury)..

add oil China's rising star!

Oh man, while I congratulate the young and rising star, this confirms once again that China has young stars improving faster than young players from the rest of the world. This is not good. Peter, Chong Wei and Taufik will have to really watch out...

order is restored to the universe... Zhang Ning wins 11-8, 11-3

Too bad that Lu Lan could not go all the way. Then a star is truly born.

Ron

i will try and upload the matches when i found a good program to decode all the matches :p
any tips? ;)

Chen Jin won......... 15-3 15-7

Congrats manz !!! The new star to look out for in 2006 :)

Wow, amazing! Congrats to CJ! :D

for the record:

Jung Jae Sung/Lee Yong Dae beat Anthony Clark/Robert Blair 15:11 / 15:6

Zhang Jun/Gao Ling beat Xie Zhongbo/Zhang Yawen 15:11 / 15:12

He can beat Hafiz! He can beat Boonsak! He can beat Peter and Lee hyun Il..... I dunno if he can beat BaoBao... actually anyone knows about Bao's injury? I mean.. what happened actually and how is it now? :(
U crazy man.. he ain't gonna beat Gade!

U crazy man.. he ain't gonna beat Gade!

Chen Jin has already proved during Denmark Open, where Gade had the crowd behind him, that he can beat Gade... so why not again in Birmingham?

A little opinion:

Men singles:

Yannie must be very happy cause CJ win! :D It not a suprise cause CJ had won over CH once last year. And he surely deserved it. In the mean time I am concern for Indonesia young MS player.

Sonny started his career promising enough but after a few years (about 6 years if I am not wrong) he still stucked with Asian Championship titles where usually top 20 Players skip this one.

Simon also started his career promising by beating lots of top 20 players, but after 4 years career, he still hadn't won any event. One of the reason is PBSI so cheap, they only send him into 5-6 events a year.

Lets compare with LCW from Malay and CJ, they had been sent to almost all the big events, the results: LCW in Top 5 now with couple titles, and CJ is surely a top 10 material with 2 titles in hand.

Women Singles:

At a time, other coutries probably had a bit relief when Gong Rui Na, Dai Yun, Gong Zhi Chao and Zhou Mi retired leaving Zn who will probably retired soon and XXF. Not to mention that at World Junior WS, China only got silver medal lost to Taiwan player.

Last year China junior players only reach QF or SF on a few occasion. But this year with Lu Lan, Zhu Lin and Wang Lin they managed to beat rank 2 through rank 6. Yes, between 3 of them, they won against XXF, Wang Chen, Pi HY , Xu Huai Wen and Mia Audina.

Sadly enough, other countries still can't produce promising young players to catch up with the Chinese. Even Nederland who had Mia and Yao Jie as sparring partner, they didn't had any promising young players.

Men Doubles:

So far MD is the only non predictable events. Cause lots of countries had strong MD and they can beat each other. The KOrean had new promising pair that grab German Open title. Next they had to prove themselves in All England where they had a tough draw.

Women Doubles:

After Helene K/Rikke Olsen from Denmark and then Ra Kyung Min retired , practically China didn't had any serious opponent. Last year Lee/Lee managed to beat China third and fourth WD but this year with a little changing, the third and fourth of China WD managed to beat Lee/Lee. Not to mention the fifth pair Du/YU already grab a title in Swiss.

Mixed Doubles:

Last year, we had quite lots of new XD strong pair. Lee/Lee from Korea, Nova/Lilyana from Indonesia, Kamila/Thomas from Denmark and Xie/Zhang from China. We still had Thai pair, Zhang/Gao, Nathan/Gail and Jens/Mette.

So this year with new scoring approaching, who will be the most dominating pair like when Ra/Kim dominate the mixed events.? Or probably like last year where lots of pairs winning the mixed titles in differrent events.

Chen Jin has already proved during Denmark Open, where Gade had the crowd behind him, that he can beat Gade... so why not again in Birmingham?
Yes, I agree with you, Chen Jin is the next champion AE, well as I know cause i already watch badminton since 1988....:) with all kinds of players, I think Chen Jin would be the Next' YANG-YANG'....:D

Chen Jin bagged French Open 2004 title prior to this.

French Open isn't part of the World Grand Prix however, it is only an "A category" event.

A little opinion:


Thanks for your insight HC. :)

Thanks for your insight HC. :)

You're welcome.:cool:

The worst MS final ever. Chen Hong didn't seem like he was erally trying. It seemed like he was just trying to make Chen Jin have to work while Chen Hong took it easy. I am suspicious of the Chinese team telling Chen Hong to lose. Something along the lines of increasing Chen Jin's confidence. Chen Hong doesn't dive once in the first game, doesn't yell. His face looks bored, sad, sleepy. I think this game was rigged.

The worst MS final ever. Chen Hong didn't seem like he was erally trying. It seemed like he was just trying to make Chen Jin have to work while Chen Hong took it easy. I am suspicious of the Chinese team telling Chen Hong to lose. Something along the lines of increasing Chen Jin's confidence. Chen Hong doesn't dive once in the first game, doesn't yell. His face looks bored, sad, sleepy. I think this game was rigged.

Does sound rigged, but it ain't he first time it's happened with Team China. At least Chen Hong could have sold it better.

The worst MS final ever. Chen Hong didn't seem like he was erally trying. It seemed like he was just trying to make Chen Jin have to work while Chen Hong took it easy. I am suspicious of the Chinese team telling Chen Hong to lose. Something along the lines of increasing Chen Jin's confidence. Chen Hong doesn't dive once in the first game, doesn't yell. His face looks bored, sad, sleepy. I think this game was rigged.

Chen Hong did look very unmotivated. however, i think it may be more due to saving up energy for next week's AE, where he will be defending his title, furthermore, GO is only a 2* tournament so it is not worth sweating.

but i do agree, Chen Hong wasn't playing his 100%. otherwise, CJ will not have won it so easily.

talking about CJ, while i know there are some CJ fans here, i think he still have some work to do in order to get to the level of his seniors. he has good rear court control and strong smash, but mid-court transitions as well as net shots tends to be a bit loose and give his opponent a lot leverage on their return.

the other match i downloaded and watched was the XD final.

while the scoring was tight, i somehow am glad that the new young pairing of Xie Zhongbo Zhang Yawen is closing on their seniors Zhang Jun and Gao Ling. Zhang Yawen in particular, is maybe at 90% the level of Gao Ling already. she is fast and lethal at the net. however, in order to become as good or even surpass Gao Ling, ZhangYW needs to work on her fine touches and add more deceptive shots. she has the mental will and fighting spirit, now the skills needs to catch up. Xie Zhongbo and Zhang Jun have similar offensive ability, both have some thundering smash. it was interesting that XieZB was as penetrating as ZhangJ, but ZhangJ seems to able to induce more fear in their opponent. i think this maybe because XieZB's smashes are more predictable. Xie also needs to work on his consistency and able to balance his string of power output so he doesn't momentarily run out of steam and make stupid mistakes.

The worst MS final ever. Chen Hong didn't seem like he was erally trying. It seemed like he was just trying to make Chen Jin have to work while Chen Hong took it easy. I am suspicious of the Chinese team telling Chen Hong to lose. Something along the lines of increasing Chen Jin's confidence. Chen Hong doesn't dive once in the first game, doesn't yell. His face looks bored, sad, sleepy. I think this game was rigged.

after watching the video, yes, i agree with u, it's like he didn't take the game seriously. Actually I was so curious why he lost so easily (from the score), now i know that he was not 100% for whatever reasons.

Chen Hong smashed all three sets long in the matches against Lin Dan and Park Sunghwan.

But against Chen Jin he didn't jumpsmash. Li Yongbo was in a training facility in order to see his son playing against Li Yu. One of the coaches told me that Chen Hong didn't play really.
But it is not because Chen Hong was told to do that. It is rather that Chen Hong wanted to concentrate on the AE.

Park Sunghwan called Chen Hong a Non-Human-Being, mentioning that he never saw a player who can jumpsmash all three sets long.

The match against Lin Dan was incredible. I had the feeling that Lin Dan would win. But Chen hong showed all his ability and mobilised all his strength to win against Lin Dan.

Chen Hong had everything to lose and nothing to gain from winning. If he won, it is only a two star, but the young CJ would have worked very hard, as he knows it is his first win, and no pressure to go far next week. CH will have pressure to go far next week. If he loses in QF or even SF he will be disappointed.

What was important was that he showed he is in good condition by beating the good players esp. Lin, which is good Psychologically when he faces Gade/LCW/Shon/Lin in AE.

Go Chen In AE!

Looking forward to seeing CJ though, seeing if any improvement in LCW, and the "New" XD,WS,MD pairs in action. Only 2 days to go!

Chen Hong had everything to lose and nothing to gain from winning. If he won, it is only a two star, but the young CJ would have worked very hard, as he knows it is his first win, and no pressure to go far next week. CH will have pressure to go far next week. If he loses in QF or even SF he will be disappointed.


what did CH have to lose? I think he lost more dignity, integrity and respect losing to CJ. Why would CH even play the tournament if he wasn't going to play his hardest throughout? He has more than 72 hours recovery which should be plenty. I don't get it.

what did CH have to lose? I think he lost more dignity, integrity and respect losing to CJ. Why would CH even play the tournament if he wasn't going to play his hardest throughout? He has more than 72 hours recovery which should be plenty. I don't get it.

Please note my second paragraph. He has a psychological boost to himself for self confidence (of which he has admitted he lacks in interviews) and against others who know he is on form.

Also he hasn't wasted mental energy focussing on winning.