New Pairings.....

[Byro-Nenium]

We all know that the Olympic Gold Medalists for the mens doubles have been split up. Candra Wijaya/Tony Gunawan have been split and put back with their orginal partners....... Candra/Sigit & Tony/Halim.

According to the commentator at the Yonex All England, the PBSI split them up so that the Indonesians could have "3 very strong" pairs. Including Flandi Limpele/Eng Hian.

Any comments on this?

thanx for all replies

[May]

what do u mean?????

[Adel]

Somebody commented at the worldbadminton.net forum that Sigit and Halim's style of play was "technically incompatible". Can't comment on that means coz I'm no expert on technique. Much as I hate the decision to split, I s'ppose the original pairings were the strongest, at least in the eyes of the PBSI. I mean, there must be a reason why the players were paired that way. Candra and Tony were more or less a "last resort" (I hate myself for saying this) when Sigit incurred the drug ban. Which goes to show the amazing prowess of their men's doubles. One Olympic gold from a "last resort" pairing and a world no.5 ranking from their remaining partners within just a few mths.

In any case, it was Haryanto Halim who suffered the most. "Dumped" by Tony to be paired with the former World champ, albeit one who had recovered from a ban, then got back with Tony, who had by then became an Olympic champion. No wonder Christian Hadinata said he was lacking in "self-confidence". Sorry I'm going into this nonsense again...

[May]

I agree with u.

[Pebulutangkis]

abt the 3 very strong pairs thing, well u saw the all england. tony/halim combine very well, to me they combine better than sigit/candra coz they always miss the smash down the center line. but they are all very strong. they beat all the seeded pairs. mind u they were unseeded.

[Byro-Nenium]

I know but they should have been.

How would you compare the Candra/Tony pairing with say, the Tony/Halim, Candra/Sigit, Flandi/Eng and Tony/Rexy pairings?

[Pebulutangkis]

well for now its hard to compare the new pairs with the candra/tony pair, maybe u can compare in 6 months, when they start playing with the koreans

[Adel]

I dunno if you'll agree with me but I think Halim seems to be bringing the best out in Tony. Comparing the Al-England finals to the Olympic finals, Tony seemed more pro-active and was playing/smashing harder. Of course, I may be wrong coz this judgment is based only on a comparison of two matches. But I get the feeling that Candra/Sigit are having a harder time adjusting than Tony/Halim. Anyway, I hope they all manage to bt the Koreans....

[Pebulutangkis]

yup i agree with that. in the olympics it seemed that candra is a better player, he's the 1 making all the winners. but in the all-england, with tony/halim, they seem to take turns in smashing, and tony looking more effective. not like the olympics, tony juz making the opening for candra. candra/sigit doesn't seem to communicate so well.