"He who laughs last laughs the longest." A reminiscence of the 2012 London Olympics and the many events before that
i watched them against hafiz/putra in IO SSP Qual.... only against a young pair... with limited international exp... and they struggle, almost lost.... so far, there are still many things to be fixed from this pair. hmm... maybe hafiz/putra can be their biggest obstacle to dominate the world in the next 10 years ???
It was an irony that the level 4 Endo/Hayakawa just beat the "level 1" Chai/Hong in the SF of the China Masters today. The CHN pair lost 13-21 in the rubber-set. These 2 pairs will likely meet each other again in R16 of Japan Open next week. Will this be the end of the level 1 pair as Hong Wei will be partnering Fu Haifeng and Chai Biao will be with Cai Yun?
I started this thread, so I should put an end to it. No more Hong Wei / Chai Biao pair anymore. Although those two were perfectly matched and teamed to won 2 tournaments consecutively, they quickly became against each other after. Both of them have big egos. Chai was a child prodigy. Won multiple junior championships when he's young. So no matter teaming with whomever, he's been the one to set the strategy and tactics. Hong was a local player, not caught any attention until he won the 3rd in the national games last time with Guo ZD. He used to be humble with either Guo or Shen Ye, because he was just a freshman. But Hong has been always try to be the one can command in the pair. So when Chai and Hong played together, both of them thought he will be the boss of the other. Soon they became very hostile to each other. At the same time, Shen Ye, the former partner of Hong W, cried and begged Hong to take him back, and would follow the Hong's order forever. Therefore, Hong didn't want to play with Chai anymore, and insisted to play with Shen. Although coaches tried hard, i think this China masters is the last show for Hong/Chai playing together. Since Hong/Shen limited potentials, Coaches decided to try Hong with Fu HF, and Chai with Cai Y.
You don't have to believe it. But it's the truth. Some history lessons: Zheng Bo and Sang Yang emerged at the same time as Fu/Cai. And Zheng /Sang were even better than Fu/Cai. In the national team training Zheng/Sang were dominant. Both Zheng/Sang and Fu/Cai were the semi-finalists in the world championship at same time. After WC surge. Both pairs went to the Indonesia open, the most difficult tournaments for Chinese players. At the Indonesia open, Zheng/Sang beat Fu/Cai convincingly in the final, and won the title. (Fu/Cai got the 2nd place there) At that moments, Zheng/Sang seemed to be the most promising even better than Fu/Cai. But the difference is that Fu and Cai are very matured in not only skills but also mentally and emotional. They know how to teamwork together. But Zheng Bo and Sang Yang cannot work together, they even fought each other... and finally Sang was kicked out the national team. Both Zheng Bo and Sang Yang are very talented in badminton. Unfortunately, Zheng Bo is not good at teamworking. Sang Yang lost his national team membership. But he has always been the top player in China, even til now. Did pretty good at the national games today. Hong/Chai was just like another Zheng/Sang.
I know the history behind Sang Yang/Zheng Bo, but you are TOTALLY WRONG about what you wrote, as highlighted in bold above! Sang Yang/Zheng Bo won the INA Open 2003 title by beating Pramote Teerawiwatana/Tessana Panvisvas in the Final. Meanwhile, Fu/Cai lost to Choong/Lee in the QF. In the INA Open 2004, Fu/Cai finished as Runners-up, but they lost to Luluk Hadiyanto/Alvent Yulianto in that that year. Sang/Zheng gave a WO. My advice to you is: next time, before you write about history lessons, did some research first on your history!
Please read: Cai Yun / Fu HF beat Kido / Setiawan: 15-11, 15-4 Chong TF/Lee WW beat Cai / Fu 15-8, 15-4 Sang Yang / Zheng Bo beat Chong / Lee: 15-9, 15-5 Were all these not enough to prove Sang/Zheng's potential at that time? It's not important my memory a little bit rusty or not. It's important my points get crossover.
(since we are talking about A player,then we talking about individual event) this is something new i heard.when we talk about child prodigy,we have 1,lee yong dae,6 ajc individual champion,2 wjc individual champion 3,ratchanok,3 wjc individual champion. chai biao didn't even win wjc in his main event(md). if chai biao was child prodigy(who only won 1 individual title each in wjc and wjc) then more than 10 single player and 20 pair can be called as child prodigy. 'child prodigy' must be a cheap name tag
There's no official definition for child prodigy. Chai Biao has won the world junior championship runner up, and also the asian junior champion if my memory not rusty. That was the best that time for China. I think it's child prodigy enough. Especially comparing Hong Wei, who even didn't get a chance to represent Junior level when he's a child.
As a record, Sang Yang/Zheng Bo did show their potential in the junior days by winning the AJC & WHC title in 2000. Sang Yang even won the WJC title in XD the same year. No qualms on their potential talent. But to say that they DOMINATED over Fu/Cai is definitely arguable. To be fair to Chai Biao, he did win one AJC title with Li Tian in 2011. So, he could be considered a child prodigy. LYB certainly did foresee big things for him since then. Remember he was paired with Guo Zhendong as the second pair after Fu/Cai right after Guo/Xu just lost to Alvent/Ahsan at the Asian Games Guangzhou 2010 then. And Chai did win his first SS title (correct me if I am wrong) with Guo relatively quickly in January 2011 (MAS SS)....which was their first tournament together (again, correct me if I am wrong).
The rest of the world had better be more concerned that when CHN one day sort out their MD weakness, their weakest link for quite some time, what does that leave to others? In CHN, every badminton enthusiast aspires to be a Lin Dan or maybe Li Xuerui, their doubles players have lower appeal or star status. In KOR, it's the other way round; maybe that explains why they produce so many doubles champions. If I'm not wrong, in CHN, more often than not, most players start with singles and only go to doubles when they cannot do well in singles. Of course, there are exceptions, but too few. I suspect if not for team championship requirements, CHN wouldn't even come up with Cai/Fu or LYB/TianBingYi in the past. Anyway, coming back to Chai Biao and Hong Wei, the fact that they could recently win a couple of titles beating the best in the world , prove their potential and talents. It's just their personality clash or other extraneous factor that gets in the way. Whatever, CBA is sorting out the problems, splitting CB/HW is only the beginning. Liu/Qiu's uneven form also requires serious attention and study. With CHN's depth of talents, it's a matter of time they work out something once they have the will to do it. I already noticed a few youngsters showing potential,eg Huang Kaixiang, Zeng Siwei, Li Junhui, Liu Yuchen, and other unfamiliar names.
I would love to see Hong Wei play with Zhang Nan. They havent played together but could be good fit. Anybody else think they could be good.
HW/CB did very well to make it to the finals of Japan Open beating Bo/Mo. One thing that really impressed me is how much they have improved on their small shots and mid-court shots, while retaining their unstoppable smashing/attacking play. Their serve and returns have improved significantly as well as their mid-court pushes and net play. If they keep improving on their weaknesses, they could be a great team.
even a player named "He Bingjiao" has been called child prodigy. everywhere, everytime, when there is a post about her, a "child prodigy" tag is always written in the post. no ajc title. no wjc title.
Actually the standard dictionary definition for child prodigy is, for example, 'a prodigy whose talents are recognised at an early age', not necessarily based on titles won and awards. In tennis, 9-yr-old Gabby Price is classified as a prodigy even though she has not won anything. http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/eye...e-9-year-old-tennis-prodigy-jennifer-capriati Of course, it's arguable and highly subjective who a child prodigy is. For many people, those winning the AJC and WJC at age 18/19 for the first time are not considered child prodigies but Intanon Ratchanok winning the WJC at 14 is.
Perhaps China will have 1 or 2 very good MD pair in near future. There are many players who are good. But in the past few years, there were always good men doubles players from China. It is just that they found success in Mixed double than Men double. I think that is because the rest of the world have some good MD combination that can match China, like right now, there are more WS players that can match China. When you mention other factors such as personality clash, I am sure other countries have the same problem and they even have limited number of good doubles players.