Phew.....Not been online for quite while..but couldnt resist posting about this! All from memory so I apologise if I have missed important bits. Today wasn't the best day I have been to, especially with the time change, the place was fairly empty until the usual start time of 1700 local, however I liked having just two courts instead of the usual three. MS Taufik wasn't really a challenge for Lin Dan, too slow and not penetrative enough. LD looked very comfrtable, relaxed and fit. Ditto LCW for Rumbaka. Rumbaka needs more power in his legs to cover the court well, otherwise his skill level is good - but I said the same last year and he hasn't changed much. Lee Hyun Il is one of my fav players, I was very happy to see him come back out of retirement as he is a player of real class and he can challenge the likes of LCW/LD. He was too strong for Liew Daren. I haven't seen Chen Long play before, and I was quite interested in him. Maybe I caught him on a bad day but I felt he was a player very similar to Chen Jin, with ecept a little more power and consistency, albeit a little slower. He doesn't really have any outstanding ability, and if CHina are putting there hopes on him they better also hope other countries don't have any good players as well. Players like LD/LCW/TH/PG or even BCl don't come along very often and we are lucky to have seen them all together. WS Li Xuerui, first up against Saina.....Saina did seem quite fit, but to beat the chinese more consistently she still needs to be more agile. She has good skill though. Wang Yihan - I like her! She is all action, she controls the game and is a big physical presence. This is also her downside, she works too hard, likes chasing the game and playing long rallies. As you may read later it caused her to lose the title this year. THe frustrating thing with her is she can attack and finish points and she has lovely slices, but she seems to prefer to rally, clear, lift to outlast her opponent instead. MD, WD No real exceptional matches to speak of. XD The English pairs played to their potential, The Adcock/Bankier match against the AMS pair was the most winnable and I was somewhat surprised they didn't win actually - but they did have a good vicotory against CHN earlier in the week. Robertson tried hard in his game which was nice, but unfortunately he is getting older and slower and his physical game was never the strongest. The INA pair pair are quite good though. Other than that, the matches were fairly unremarkable....Saturday and Sunday were much better though!
