Comparing players

[2cents]

Last sunday, when I was playing badminton with my friends, we talked about the Thomas and Uber cups, and also the hot players. I said Lin Dan is one of the greatest player in the history because he did few people can before. He won so many matches continuously. But my friend disagreed. He thought Lin Dan is just an up coming new star, far behind the greatest players. Overall, he said, Lin Dan's archievements even cannot compare to Ji Xingpeng, Xia Xuanze, Chen Hong, Taufik, Hendrawan, Wong CH and Gade, Sun Jun, Dong Jiong. Then we discussed these players, we found more differences between us. I ranked Lin Dan first, then Ji X, Xia XZ, Sun Jun, Chen Hong, Gade, Hendrawan, Dong Jiong, Wong CH and Taufik, because Taufik didn't win anything big, and also never rank high for long. But my friend ranked totally differently as follows:
(his) .........................(mine)
Gade ........................Lin Dan
Taufik ...................... Ji Xingpeng
Dong Jiong ................ Xia X
Hendrawan ................Sun Jun
Sun Jun ....................Chen Hong
Xia X ........................Gade
Chen Hong ................ Hendrawan
Wong CH....................Dong Jiong
Ji Xingpeng.................Wong CH
Lin Dan .....................Taufik

It seems that it's an exactly reversed list.

IBF offiically has a yearly evaluation including both singles and doubles. They listed Candra as the best player in year 2002, and Kim DM the best last year. But in my mind, singles are much much better. Almost all the Chinese double players are failed single players. Now the hot Cai Yun, Sang Yang, Zheng Bo were all singles before, because they were not good enough to play single any more, they were forced by coaches to play double.

What do you think about those single players overall archievements? Do you think double players archieve more than singles?

[taneepak]

I think it is inherently good for you and your friend to have different opinions. If all humankind were clones of each other then God save us. Each person's opinion is influenced or even coloured by his own local set of circumstances/environment.
Maybe you should try to convince your friend the convictions of your choice with better reasoning and arguments to back up your opinions. Your friend should do the same. If both of you still disagree, then never the twine shall meet, so be it. Multiply your case a million times, this is how the world lives.
If you and your friend can just step outside your little circle of dispute and look a little outside, you will realize there are other people appraising both sides of the argument. Maybe, the one who gets more nods from such people has a more convincing case; or maybe not, if the people appraising your arguments are biased. You can never tell, can you?

[hcyong]

It is good for badminton as well that everyone has different (sometimes opposite) opinions. It means there is a diverse variety of players with different personalities out there.

[2cents]

I think I was totally misunderstood here.

I am very pleased and I enjoy knowing people have different views about the players, that's the reason I ask your opinion. It's like viewing a poll result. I never complained about my friend at all. I only enjoy sharing his opinion. I thought it's interesting to see how other people evaluate top players. I never want to correct them, and I don't think I was even correct at first place. How this interesting topic became a boring sophiscated philosophic discussion here. It is kind of disappointed no people interested in either

[Qidong]

I like the way people rate tennis players - how many grand slams they have won. In badminton, I would say the grand slams includes Olympic, World Champions and All England. So my list of greatest players from 1996 should include Poul-Erik Hoyer-Larsen, Ji Xinpeng, Peter Rasmussen, Sun Jun, Hendrawan, Peter Gade, Xia Xuanue, .....

Among them all, I would rank Poul-Erik Hoyer-Larsen as #1. (Since 1996).

[shawntn]

I wont discuss any of my philoshopical standpoint. Lets revive this thread.

my list

Chen Hong
Lin Dan
Taufik
Gade
Wong CH
Xia X
Hendrawan
Sun Jun
Dong Jiong
Ji Xingpeng

I wont argue mine is correct comparing to everone else. But certainly mine is definately correct in my little world. I am pretty sure there is a good chance someone out there shares my view.

[2cents]

Thanks for your valuable posts. I appreciate them very much. Even though different people have different views, it is very exciting for me at least to see other people's rankings. I don't need your support my way of ranking. Instead, if you criticize my ranking, I will be very grateful, It is not an issue who's right and who's wrong, it is just for exchanging ideas and visions and insights, it is exciting to read your ranking because I know how you view those players. I really enjoy reading your posts. Thanks again.

[Nrlll9]

lin dan
sun jun
hendrawan
Xia X
Wong CH
Chen Hong
Taufik
Gade
Dong Jiong
Ji Xingpeng

[BoboTheBadder]

Sun Jun
Xia XZ
Hendrawan
Gade
Chen Hong
Lin Dan
Ji Xinpeng
Wong CH
Dong Jiong
Taufik

[Hugo]

It's really tough to rank players in order of how "good" they are because individuals hold diversified standards for measuring players.

Should the players who've won Olympic Golds be up there automatically?? Sure, Ji won at 2000 but then he faded from view right after. In fact, I'm betting that for the average fan, he is one of the least recognized Chinese player names.

Or should we rank players by how long they can maintain a #1 spot?? Chen Hong should be pretty high for this feat. Or how many major GPs they've won? Or how talented they are at badminton??

It's tough to judge but I belive, just based on Lin Dan's unparalled performance in the past 6 months, he has already established himself high up on that list. Based on his current play and streak, his projected GP career total could easily be 20, 25+ GPs! Also, if Taufik and Wong CH are considered on that list, then Bao and others should also be on the list.

At this point, I am ranking Lin D just a nanometer behind the Olympics and WC winners listed(save for Ji). However, by this year in Athens or next year in Anaheim, CA he could solidfy his position......

[BoboTheBadder]

It's really tough to rank players in order of how "good" they are because individuals hold diversified standards for measuring players.

Should the players who've won Olympic Golds be up there automatically?? Sure, Ji won at 2000 but then he faded from view right after. In fact, I'm betting that for the average fan, he is one of the least recognized Chinese player names.

Or should we rank players by how long they can maintain a #1 spot?? Chen Hong should be pretty high for this feat. Or how many major GPs they've won? Or how talented they are at badminton??

It's tough to judge but I belive, just based on Lin Dan's unparalled performance in the past 6 months, he has already established himself high up on that list. Based on his current play and streak, his projected GP career total could easily be 20, 25+ GPs! Also, if Taufik and Wong CH are considered on that list, then Bao and others should also be on the list.

At this point, I am ranking Lin D just a nanometer behind the Olympics and WC winners listed(save for Ji). However, by this year in Athens or next year in Anaheim, CA he could solidfy his position......

Agree completely. Lin Dan hasn't proven himself in any major singles tournaments yet (save Thomas Cup which is a team tournament). As soon has he does, he's gonna shoot way up on my list.

[Cheung]

Very interesting thread.

May I suggest one other criteria - winning when it really makes a difference.

What is a difference.

Obviously, big tournaments are one criteria.

Another is winning crucial ties in team tournaments.

This is where Sun Jun and Hendrawan come up really high on the list with their contributions to TC, even higher than Xia Xuan Ze or Peter Gade (Peter Gade goes down because of not having won WGPF, WC).

Yang Yang in the 1986 TC final replaced the world no.1 and world champion Han Jian to play at first singles (Han Jian was dropped; not from injury but because he had difficulty beating Icuk Sugiarto). Yang Yang beat Icuk in the first singles setting the tone for China's victory.

In 2002 TC, Hendrawan had played very few matches and was 3rd singles of Indonesia. He beat Roslin (who has a good record in TC) to win the TC.

In 1998 TC, Hendrawan won the crucial 2nd singles in the s/f against China and then again in the final against M'sia to get Indonesia's win.

So Chen Hong should go down, even off the list, because no WC, no WGPF, no Olympics, no TC crucial wins, lost in Sudirman cup final in 2003........

[seven]

I agree with Cheung here, and this makes Gade and Chen Hong go down...

[2cents]

Thanks for a lot of valuable ideas. Traditionally, people value Olympics, Thomas cup, and World Champ very high. Especially Olympics. I understand that.

In tennis, I saw people comparing two players, or even two champions for different tournaments. The first important thing is what's the prize money for that event (money criterion), the second thing is how many players (especially top ranked players) participated in that event (competition criterion). So there is no place in tennis for Olymics champions, no place for the heros of Davis cup (Thomas cup counterpart) either.

That's the reason I ranked Lin Dan so high. He beat so many players in all big tournaments. 6 star HK open, 6 star China open, big opens like Denmark, Korea, All England... No body did that before.

Gade is a guy I like because he always comes with creative thinking. (Most players are quite dump in thinking). I know Gade did not win any thing big. But I agree with what he said that Olympic champ is not as big as World champ, and World champ is not as big as an open tournament champ (he meant Denmark open). I think that's totally true. Because at Olympics, besides no money, the 1st criterion, very limited players were chosen to compete. So Olympic is not big at all for both criteria (money and competition). For this coming Olympic, the long time world number one, multiple tournaments winner, current world number two, Chen Hong may be excluded. Last Olympic, Chen Hong, as world number 6 that time, was excluded. The world champ Xia XZ could be excluded also for this year's Olympics. So the guy who wins the Olympic doesn't have to be the best player on the earth.

For the same reason, world champion is a little bit better than Olympic, but it is also limited in competiton and no money in prize. Last year world championship tournamtn, Chen Yu, who was extremely hot at that moment (thrashed all other Chinese players in national competitions), was excluded because of the limitation of players. There is also no prize money for world champs either.

The wost unfair case is the so called Thomas cup. Some people got chances to play, some don't. I think if China team used Chen Hong to face Jonassen, I bet he would do much better than Bao CL. But ironically, Bao became a hero by difficultly edging KJ. Not only Chen Hong, Xia Xuan Ze, Park... did not have chance because of their coaches, Susilo, Ng,... and more others did not have any chance because of their countries. How come we can deprive those players greatness based on his coach, teammates or country, instead of himself.

One index which used often in tennis, is the totol prize money earned by that player lifetime. It seems we cannot apply this to badminton.

[flikflak]

if we compare who's better based on the tournaments....

It should be tournaments with high pride and high PRIZE!!

What do u think? I'll rank them from
Olympics,
All England,
World Grand Prix,
Asian Games, Grand Prix,
TC/UC,
World Championships.

[WoAiZhongGuo]

In terms of skill

Chen
Gade
WongCH
Xia
Lin

ok, i don't know who Taufik and the other are so... sorry.

[jamesd20]

In terms of skill

Chen
Gade
WongCH
Xia
Lin

ok, i don't know who Taufik and the other are so... sorry.

What exactly is skill?

Racket skill, footwork skill, mental skill?


2cents:
World championships does have prize money(the highest-7*), only olympics and thomas/uber and surdiman cups do not.