Singles, doubles or Mixed? Male or female? An all time best player over all disciplines and gender will be impossible to suggest.
Men singles. There are a lot of doubles players over 6 feet. Reason I'm asking is like look at all the top players right now, taufik, lin dan, PG, LCW, lee hyun ill... none of them clear 6 feet do they?
Well let's see - there are several current MS players over 6' tall, including Peter Gade, Wong Choong Hann, Bao Chunlai, Hafiz Hashim, Roslin Hashim, and Kenneth Jonassen. Both Chen Hong and Lin Dan are relatively tall and around 5'11" if not 6'. Several retired players are 6' and over, including Poul-Erik Hoyer-Larsen, Dong Jiong, Fung Permadi, Allan Budi Kusuma and Thomas Stuer-Lauridsen. I think a more interesting question would be how many top players are under say 5'9", but even this list would have several players including Lee Chong Wei, Sun Jun, Hendrawan, Yang Yang and Ardy Wiranata. Funny thing about Zhao Jianhua: when I first saw him playing in videos, I could have sworn that he was over 6' tall, considering the ridiculous angles he could get on his smash. I then talked to an ex-international players who had met him back when he was playing, and he told me he was about 5'9" (same height as himself so he could judge). Now that I look back at my tapes, I can see that the angles he gets is by virtue of his tremendous vertical.
What about asking who's the shortest MS player? Just interesting to see how they can move around the court and retrieve side smashes. There's one taiwanese female player who looked extremely short but seemed to play relatively well. Forgot her name... but I guess it would be different in men's singles.
The shortest one in the top 30 is Shoji Sato of Japan at 167cm. He is tiny. These are all 6' or over... Bjoern Joppien 1.92m Muhammed Hafiz Hashim 1.88m Kenneth Jonassen 1.88m Bao Chunlai 1.87m Chen Hong 1.82m (but IBF has him at 1.81m) Peter Gade 1.84m Shon Seung-mo 1.82m Wong Choong Hann 1.83m Niels Christian Kaldau 1.83m but... Lin Dan 1.78 Ronald Susilo 1.77m Taufik Hidayat 1.76m Lee Hyun-il 1.76m Boonsak Ponsana 1.77m Lee Chong Wei 1.72m Sony Dwi Kuncoro 1.73m Xia Xuanze 1.78m Ng Wei 1.76m are all under 6'.
I don't think CH is over 6', in fact when I was standing next to him, I believe I was a tad bit taller. I'm 5'11" on a good day.
Ya, Tinkerbell players! You guys misinterpretted the whole post :crying: ... just kidding Canada is metric my mistake I thought XXZ was taller! Hes so damn fast! I have the WC 2003 when hes playing KJ. Even in slow motion when he rushes the net his feet are on the floor for like less than 3/10th (obvious estimate) its ridiculous. So so incredibly fast... even in slow mo! I also thought that Jiajian Hua was above 6' (haha i almost did 6" again) because of his insane angle.
I know he is listed at 183. But he looked shorter than Chan Jin, Wong CH and Chen Hong when they shook hand before their match. I think he's more like 5'11.