Well, well... what can I say!! What a wonderful match- 8-7 Win to Korea in the Final set... But what an amazing comeback from Candra WIjaya and Sigit Budiarto from being sets down earlier on, and then levelling and in the end only to lose out by 1 measly point! All credit due to the Korean pair, but the Indonesian No. 1 Seed really gave it their all, and gave us THE MATCH of the entire tournament! Watch out for Candra's saves while literally on his knees!! Simply the BEST!!
Great Match ... but the Indonesians gave it away. I think Sigit B played too many trick shots, behind the back or between the legs. I think he got used to playing these shots in practice and can't play normal shots anymore. Did every one of his trick shots result in loss?
Nope. There was one between the legs shot that saved the shuttle and the Indonesians won that point. I think it was 5th game. There was even one slow motion replay that showed sigit's position ready to take backhand defence but he swung the racquet the long way round his back. Was he really intentionally trying to pull off a deliberate trick shot or was he just definately caught being not ready on his backhand side?
I think Tony and chandra would have easily taken the game! sigit just gifted teh game! But what i liked most was the way sigit personally took on himself to make the comeback in the final set! he knew that he was the one who is making the mistakes! so he broke every point that was served to him! But they lost after all that! I think If sigit stuck to some amt of basics then they would have easily won! They are still way too better than the others!
Im rather inclined to agree with Sorin in that Sigit did probably try to use too much of the trick shot (from behind his back) although like Cheung says, he does one rather brilliantly from between the legs and winning them a point. Apart from that particular shot, the others were amiss. I've watched the game three times now (i recorded it) and the Koreans saw Sigit could be the weaker player in the Indonesian duo- he wasn't consistent at first making lots of unforced errors, although he did warm up to the game and played some awesome shots. Candra maintined his cool throughout I think, as always. Also, if you look closely you'll see that Sigit was very much off-centre most of the time, as if he was covering Candra all the time, when this clearly wasn't necessary. The Korean pair realized this and smacked the birdie into the clear court, as you would. But coming back to Sorin's point, perhaps Sigit has gotten used to playing trick shots during practice, and the danger there is that if you make a habit of it you'd tend to use automically in all your games, which might cost you dearly in an important match as the All England. Point is, they're great shots WHEN they work, but the risks are just too high. In the end though, the players had only milliseconds to react to the shuttle. Sigit didnt do too badly, but he certainly could have done much better, I think.
I agree this was an excellent game, one of the best I have ever seen. I was there to see it live and the atmosphere was excellent. While I haven't watched the tape of it yet, I'm not sure if I agree that Candra kept his cool. Throughout the game he seemed to me to make many unforced errors, and almost all of his smashes from the back seemed very flat, which enabled the Koreans to easily get the attack back and put Sigit and Candra into trouble. He also seemed to look a little rattled, as if he didn't know what to do. On the other hand, I do agree that perhaps Sigit played too many trick shots, but maybe the Korean attack was so good that he was left with no alternative in many situations. But it was also Sigit moving forwards more in the fifth game in the defence that led to their comeback. I seem to remember one point where Sigit walked straight forwards to the net and took a smash right off the tape, gaining the attack for the indonesians again. Having said all of that though it was still an unbelievable match, by far the best match I have seen using the 5x7 format.
I think all 4 players had their bad time at some point or other in the match, especially at the net. In the first set, I remember Ha losing a string of points because all his returns went into the net. At the end of the game, Kim was probably tired, and was the one making the mistakes, which allowed the Inas to come back. I believe also that Candra could've played better. It's quite off his best. Nevertheless, credit to all of the players. They put in their all, and I must say that it's one of the few, if not the only match, where every game point was played like a match point, not to mention the 9 match points in total. ABSOLUTELY THRILLING.
Yes, Chandra seemed a little jaded. He made a couple of errors which wouldn't normally be expected of him. The most surprising one was where he smashed croos court to Ha, Sigit moved ready to cover the straightline return, Chandra stopped (instead of following in) and Ha gently blocked it backed crosscourt for the winner.
I don't know, but if he was it didn't seem to work very well! I suppose he maybe thought that the Korean defence of downward smashes was too good and he should try some flat ones, but they seemed to pick them up very easily as well. While I remember, I also feel that the Candra/Sigit pairing is much more effective when Sigit is at the back and Candra is at the net. Candra seemed to be much better at intercepting at the net than Sigit, but in contrast Sigit's smashes from the back were much more effective than Candra's. Any thoughts on this?Cheung wrote:
I thought it was the other way round, Sigit tends to go to the net more often. Maybe Chandra smashes flat to bring Sigit into the game. A flat return is more likely from a flat smash and Sigit would then have a chance to intercept. I think I'd better go and look at that match again. Ah yes, remember how Kim forehand defence weakness was so exploited so well in the WC. I wonder why Chandra/Sigit didn't try this ploy again - perhaps they didn't have the game to attack this weakness. If I remember correctly, the only pair to have consistently beaten the Koreans are Tony and Chandra. Tony must have worked something out.
