India too good for Singapore

Wow, India is improving. Singapore relies too much on Ronald...

 

I think the caption "India too good for Singapore" is misleading if you had read on.

Actually, without the service of injured Ronald Susilo, our Singapore boys put up a relatively gallant fight although the odds were against them as they are lower-ranked than their Indian counterparts. It gave local boy, Aaron Tan, a chance to savour the experience of competiing in such a prestigious tournament overseas as second singles. In fact, including first singles player, Kendrick Lee, there were all in 4 local boys out of a total 6 who represented the country.

And except for the 1st Doubles, all the other 4 matches went into rubber games and as acknowledged by the writer, they could have gone either way.
This exposure for our local boys could only enhance their standing and prepare for the country's target of making it to the TC finals in 2012. More local players are willing to train and play full time now and this augurs well for the future.

 

singapore is not going to make headlines with or without ronald. With that devastating injury, he could miss one or half a step which is crucial for a defensive player. After his olympic victory over LD, LD replied with 3 back-to-back-to-back straight sets victory over ronald(starting from Singapore Open 05). Are you still dreaming? And so much for the home-brewed talent-kendrick lee

 

second 'indonesia' thomas cup qualify to the final

 

second indonesia is good hahaha but cannot qualify. Therefore it is indeed "too good for singapore"

 

Now if you have no dreams, if you don't believe in yourself, you can forget about winning!

Anyway, winning and losing is all part of the game. Even the best players do lose sometimes as in the case of LD losing to RS in the Olympics. In that event, unfortunately LD's dreams to become the Olympic champion were completely shattered at the very start!

So Kendrick Lee must not stop dreaming for you'll never know one's dreams can come true. And Singapore's dream of making it to the Thomas Cup finals in 2012 may also come true. We just have to believe in ourselves!

We had a similar target for the Uber Cup but we already made it this year! So our Uber Cup dream came 6 years earlier than envisaged. Ironically, our girls proved too good for India, winning 5-0, to avenge the defeat our TC boys suffered at the hands of India.

And if I read another post correctly, Malaysia's dream of beating Indonesia in this Thomas Cup preliminaries just came true. All of Malaysia's singles players beat all three top Indonesian singles players, Even Taufik also lost to LCW. And 4th ranked Malaysian, Beng Hong beat Simon Santoso as well.

So man, don't dismiss dreams as inconsequential!

 

And if the local players doesn't perform there'll be more import players standing by in 2012 so do have dreams --> the dreams to win. hahaha.....
I wonder how many imported players are in Spore Uber team?

 

Sufficient enough to give us that important impetus to move forward.

Actually Singapore's strategy to import foreign talents is beginning to reap rich dividends. Ronald Susilo's win at the Japan Open 2004 and his defeat of well respected players such as Lin Dan has rekindled the spark in local badminton and young people here are more interested in sports than ever before. Hitherto, studies outweighed all else. In fact, just at the end of last year, after their 'O' levels exam, a number of local boys decided to turn professional, including Derek Wong and Aaron Tan, who featured in this Thomas Cup preliminaries at second singles. This is certainly a good sign.

Our imported girls proved to be more successful. It had to be, because many of them were brought in when they were relatively young, at about 13 or 14 years old, and they were given professional training and international exposure to be developed into better players. They include Li Li, Frances Liu Ai Fan for the first batch and subsequent ones like Xing Aiying, Sari (Indonesia) and older ones like Jiang and Li. Some have dropped out. Now, we still have a bigger group of young imports, mainly girls, being groomed to represent Singapore in the future.

Frankly there is no shame in importing and developing foreign talents for Singapore. Modern Singapore is made up of citizens whose forefathers originated from foreign lands. We have been importing talents for a long time now to grow our economy and to remain successful. Given a relatively small domestic population of about 3 million, we have to import another million to continue to grow and remain relevant to the world, which is our market. How then can Singapore transform itself from a third-world to a first-world economy in a relatively short time when many of its neighbours in South East Asia are still struggling to achieve first-world status?

Singapore's strategy benefits both ways, not only to Singapore but also to the foreign imports. Best of all, if such imports finally become our own citizens and remain to help us to become better in all aspects of our endeavours.

The day may come when more overseas Chinese shuttlers who have become citizens of other countries can beat their counterparts in China.

Dreams can come true.

 

Yeah..yeah.. true... true...next time you'll see Spore importing players from Brazil then Spore will win FIFA World Cup eventually and Sporean can be really proud of it. The rest of South East Asia countries can follow Spore foot step. What a good move. Have dreams to win at anyway.

 

That is up to our Football Association to decide, but many countries are learning from Brazil. There is nothing wrong with learning from the best and that is one way of improving oneself. Now that the world is globalized, one can hire the best coaches from anywhere to improve one's standards and to make a mark in the international scene. Even England has a foreign national coach, not an English coach. English clubs are full of foreign imports, both players and coaches and England is now able to match the best in the world. This year's World Cup will be very interesting to guage how far England has improved.! You should ask world champions, France, how they feel about their national soccer team.

I don't think we can decide for other South East Asian countries. Each of them has its own resources, limitations, strategies and plans. They need not mimic other countries and their own leaders will decide what is best for themselves. The final results will tell whether they have succeeded or failed. But just dreaming without the attendant action plans to turn dreams into reality is futile.

You miss the point about foreign imports. There is no guarantee that they can always deliver. A country imports because it either lacks the numbers who are good enough to compete at the world stage or they need such talents as role-models to help their own players develop. The spin-off effect is key and it may come a time when imports are unnecessary as the local base has expanded sufficiently.

Learning from the masters, getting others to help us improve and do better is nothing to mock at.

 

i think it doesn't matter if s'pore is importing player, even if she gather up all top players from all around the world. the thing is that it shows a lot of passion on the sport from the singaporeans. it will do only good for badminton.
i myself is an indonesian(i don't like it when people use "indon" term) will always support my country. as long as it is a legal move to do, i will go all the way and endorse it.
in fact, i would suggest that we import female player from china as soon as possible. it will always be inspiring to have someone better around. they will make good examples, good sparring patrners, and hopefully will fill up the empty space in our regeneration of female players. and as time goes by, they will grow attachment to the country they represent and be happy to be called one.

 

I think you guys are confused between playing for clubs and country. I can write the whole thesis about this but Im not going to do it here.

 

Thank you for your understanding. Yes, I think our SBA has the passion and commitment to develop and improve the game here and it is producing results. Mind you, we also import from Indonesia, both for coaches and players.

One of the girls in our successful Uber Cup team is Sari Shinta Mulya. Sari was 15 and the U-15 Champion from central Java when she turned professional with us in July 2003. Together with Xing Aiying, who joined Sari at about the same time when Xing was 13 from Jiangsu, China, they made a good doubles pair and won the decisive tie against India in the recent Uber Cup preliminaries by defeating Saina Nehwal/Aparna Balan 21-14, 21-15. Now if Sari did not join Singapore, will she have a chance to play in the Uber Cup for Indonesia? Will she have the opportunity to travel to quite a number of overseas tournaments and see the world? In Singapore she was coached by experienced Chinese coaches, apart from our Indonesian coaches and I'm sure she is learning English. Sari is developing herself into a better player and I'm sure we'll see more contributions from her in the future.

Here's a picture that I took of Sari receiving her silver medal prize at the SEA Games in Manila. If you recall, even Indonesia lost to Singapore in the women's team event.

 

We're not confused but I think you're looking at things too narrowly.

 

Ok Ok.... lets go with the dreams to win with imports. How does that sound? 3 and a half Chinese team in this coming Uber cup final the other half Indonesian.

 

well i also dont see england making too much headlines except for nathan.i dont see clark or blair making it that big too.besides the mens event need exceptional talent and luck.singapore has already put up a brave fight without susilo.the burden for being 1st singles is huge for kendricks to carry.and besides we were giving people like aaron more experience.india is fast improving no doubt about that.credit to them but they have not faced the strongest singapore mens team yet.our target is the 2012 thomas cup so we will see by then.

 

and stop calling us second indonesia la.its rude ok.we groom this talents ourselves in their crucial years.we are only just picking up leftover talents from other countries and making them our own since our poool of talent is smaller.

 

Yeah, it's really hurting and rude. The shuttlers have already made Singapore their home. They like being called and are used to being called Singaporeans. Calling them Chinese or Indonesians are in some way offensive to them as well.

And really, when Netherlands qualify, everyone doesn't seem to care that they are half-indonesian and half-chinese [since their main players are yao jie and audina].
Nobody commented anything like what you said. But when Singapore qualifies with the help of EX-chinese players, these hurtful comments start popping up.

Weird eh.

 

Yes, with our mixed bag, we can still beat Indonesia's best in such a prestigious team tournament as the Uber Cup. Isn't that an achievement? Dreams do come true, isn't it?

We can only select the girls who are not wanted by their own national associations. They were considered 'rejects' by their own countries whose population is so enormous that they have the luxury to pick and choose. Yet our girls proved that with proper training, hard and smart work and timely exposure, we can still prevail against traditionally strong countries. No internal politics to deprive our girls of a chance to compete overseas. They put in a lot of hard work and they deserved to be rewarded.

Keep it up, Singapore girls! Do your best and make your dreams come true!