Last year, before world championship, IBF announced the top players in the world for the title. Lee HI was one of the few; while Chen Hong, Chen Jin, Bao Chun Lai, and KJ were not, even though Lee's ranking not as high as them. I questioned, and many people here disagreed me and supported IBF. Now again, in the front page top news of IBF official web site, http://internationalbadminton.org/newscontent.asp?pageid={13278516-F210-4A03-A5ED-16BE631D39A6} it says: The only top player missing this year is Lee Hyun Il , who recently stunned the world by announcing his retirement, ... Chen Hong, who will also be missing the great event. Now Lee HI has announcing his retirement, but Chen Hong unclear. Even though, Lee is still the top player while Chen Hong's not. why IBF honors Lee HI so much, but belittles Chen Hong always. Chen Hong has won all England before and Lee HI never. Chen Hong won two 6 star titles last year, one in Asia, the other in Europe, but Lee HI won nothing. Still, IBF writes much more on Lee HI than Chen Hong for this coming all England open. By the way, the current ranking for Lee HI is 11th, but Chen Hong is the 4th. Chen Hong has 58871 points while Lee HI has only 36413 points only 60% of Chen Hong's points. Lee HI and Chen Hong's impacts on the all england open: Lee HI, never won all england, never won last year, ranked 11th with 36413 Chen H, won all england b4, won two 6 stars last year, ranked 4th with 58871 But in the eye of IBF, missing LHI is much more important than missing CH. I have a feeling that IBF hates Chinese players.
Actually, Chen Hong is the best overall legend in the last 20 years of all England open. Chen Hong has won England open twice, and also grabbed two runner-ups. Only Lin Dan came close with 2 titles and 1 runner up. Chen Hong contributed the most in the last 20 years to the all England, and still the best player in the world. Actually before his withdraw at Malaysia open, he's won 16 matches continuously without losing any. It is just too unfair that IBF treats such a legend. IBF always behaves like a biased fan instead of a professional organization.
IBF also says: Taufik has made known his full focus to win this All England Championship – the only title which has eluded him until now. This is also not true. There are lots of titles with higher prize than all england which Taufik has never won.
There are so many actually, Taufik has never won any top prize tournaments Korea open almost always awards the most money, Taufik has never won. China/China master/World Cup/Hong Kong open should come in 2nd, Taufik has never won any of them. In Europe, Denmark open is the best, Taufik has never won. Actually, Taufik has never won any open tournament in Europe.
Before 2004, Taufik was known as a talented player but won nothing. In fact He did won at home, but only at home. Since Olympic 2004, he began to win some small scaled games, such as Olympic game, WC and Asian games. Usually in open tournaments, the final winner needs 6 win to claim the title. While in smaller scaled games, only 4 wins can give you a gold. That's something Taufik becomes good at since 2004. Now all the open tournaments becomes smaller scaled by IBF's new rules. So I think Taufik should be able to win some open tournaments this year.
hmm... if that is the case why people keep saying all england is the only title that he hasn't win ? Makes him sound so legendary.
There is a perception in the badminton community that the Olympics, the World Championships and All England are the major titles to win to be great. No male singles player has ever won all three titles in a professional career. No player apart from Taufik has won the Olympic and World Championships. So if Taufik wins All England he will be considered by some as the greatest. Off course this perception is false in my opinion because to be truly great or the greatest one would have to be overwhelmingly dominant in one's professional career such as Rudy Hartono who won 8 All England titles (7 of them consecutively) and 1 World Championships. The Olympics didn't have badminton as a sport at his time and the World Championships only started in 1977 towards the end of Rudy's career. Taufik has a long way to go yet although he has won Indonesian Open for 6 times equal with Ardy Wiranata.
Ask anyone (including players) they will say Olympics, WC and All-England are the most important, everything else is 2nd rate. I can understand naming Korea because it offers the highest prize money, but what makes you think all China tournaments more important than All-England, I really dun know, Especially the China world cup, which is an invitational tournament should be even less important than 3* tournament, and Denmark open isn't very important because not all top players participate (maybe due to expenses..) On the otherhand everyone goes (atleast tries to) to All-England.
What it should read is "The only prestigious title which has eluded him until now". Saying the only title is a bit stupid . I think it was one of the, or the first proper badminton tournament or something wasn't it? That's why it has such a reputation. And that is why most players would really like to win the All England. Or something like that... . I've only seen a few of the older videos (1970s/80s) but I don't think the players really begin to compare to the players of today. They're great and it's certainly something to dominate a sport even then. In that respect those old players are legendary. But as the sport has grown it has also become a lot more competitive. I don't think it's quite as achievable these days for a player to dominate as much as they did 20-30 years ago. So I don't think it is fair to compare a players dominance to the older players as a basis of whether or not they are legendary in their time. Anyway maybe the writer was referring to the top players of each country or something along those lines. I agree, Chen Hong is every bit as much of a top player as Lee Hyun Il. I wouldn't really take anything on the IBF website too seriously myself. Both of the examples you've given just seem to be a simple mistake or a misenterpretation on our side (like what I suggested above). Or else they just have no idea what they are talking about !
how can you call olympic games and wc small scaled, those are the most important tournaments in badminton!
He's trying to say that there are smaller field in the draw. With Super Series now, it is not true anymore though ! And not forgetting he won the Asian Games gold twice !
Hm I couldn't agree more with 2cents. It's totally unfair to dismiss Chen Hong, who is in my opinion one of the most underrated players on the pro circuit anyway and Taufik on the contrary probably the most overrated. But as this thread is mostly about Chen Hong and Lee HI, I don't want to draw Taufik into this. Despite Lee HI being a great player and everything, I don't think he draws even close to Chen Hong's past success, or even current, just as 2cents well pointed out. I mean, just look at the world ranking, with that much difference, doesn't that scream you which player is more succesful. Well not much we can do anyway, but I really agree on IBF being obviously unreasonable concerning this matter. It's really a pity that Chen Hong, such a talented and succesful player, retires. Very good arguments there anyway, plus you had them based on facts. reps .
So very true. The amount of "upsets" Chen Hong has caused you'd think he'd be given a little more credit.
Ethan's right. Smaller scaled means smaller entries. I knew and also said Taufik won Asian games. He needed only 4 matches (think about it one more time, just 4 matches ) to win the Asian games, in fact, which means the best of only 16 players. Larger scaled tournaments, like all England, used to be more than 80 entries, and at least 6 matches to claim the title. With the introduction of super series, all tournaments become smaller scaled than before, but still larger than Asian games and Olympics. Thanks Chire. You made truth much more clear than I presented. I really think that my thoughts are so common and natural, although so many people here don't agree. If in any other sports, other than badminton, the more prize money, the more important of the tournament; the more entries, the better of the tournament; the more high ranked players, the higher level of the tournament. How come here in badminton, everything's upside down? Asian game? what a joke!!! without any European players, without world number 2 Chen Hong, without world number 4 Chen Jin, without world number 7 Chen Yu, without Sony, without Roslin, even they are all Asians, but has players playing with Hijab in the top 16! How can you rate such a joke game as the best tournament? Olympic is the same joke but in a little bit larger scale. Countries and players might say Olympic is more important, it is reasonable. Because it is the place to earn national pride. Players also got pressures from their countries. But for us, as purely badminton fans, not enthusiastic patriots, we should honor the real quality of the tournaments. I rated China Open/World Cup/China master behind Korea open, because usually they offer the 2nd best prize around $250k to $300k. The Denmark open should be the top one in Europe also because of its best in Europe prize money around $200k. Even though all England didnot award much, it should be higher than its money presents. Because its prestige history and large, probably the largest number of entries. It used to be the most popular tournaments with largest entry numbers. But not any more because of introduction of the new super series. So if someone rates all England used to be the best tournament, I totally agree. Personal opinion: I think Lin Dan is the best badminton player since I watched badminton. I'm not sure about Rudy Hartono. He must be great, but I'm just not familiar with. Some people say that Rudy benefited a lot from absence of China players, especialy Tang XH and Hou JC. Lin Dan, Chen Hong and Peter Gade are the best 3 players in consistency. Chen Hong has been the number 1 continuously more than 1 whole year. Who else can do that? Even Lin Dan and Peter Gade cannot do that. Ranked as number 1 in IBF is nothing because their system is very inaccurate. But Chen Hong can beat the odds being number 1 more than a year, that's so difficult to beat both the other players and also the so randomly erroneous ranking system. Taufik is also a great player, but if he were in China, he would not have chance to play that long, he could end up with nothing for his career. Even he grabbed gold in Olympics, he could also forced to retire like Ji Xingpeng because of inconsistency. So Taufik should thank Indonesia for letting him play so long. So along with Ji Xingpeng, Xia Xuanze, Sun Jun and Hendrawan, Taufik is in the same category who can win, but cannot win continuously.
Hmmm... ..2cents, just my small nudge..i understand it's just your opinion(since you're not familiar with), but be a bit "cautious" when mentioning & comparing current players' names w/the great 'Rudy Hartono'..if you'd read a bit of sabathiel's past posts, i would say he's a strong proponent of him & likes to "revolve" around that name, most if not all of the time, in his posts...
Thank ctjcad (where did this name come from? I'm especially cautious when I'm typing, afraid of typos ) , anyway, thanks for your nudge. I knew Rudy was great, at least he won so many all England titles. There is no doubt about his greatness. Let's discuss more about the current players.
I'm quite surprised by the way the article has written abt Chen Hong. Lee Hyun Il is a good player but never consistent enough unlike Chen Hong. btw, the 2003 Sudirman Cup Men Singles Event between Chen Hong n Lee Hyun-Il was recently uploaded. In that match, Lee Hyun Il was playing at his peak IMO, but Chen Hong was too as he was the world no.1 at that time. http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=41058
I think you guys are being a bit too sensitive here. The person who wrote the article (perhaps Raphael Sachetat) is not perfect, and may have written it in a hurry. Although it was wrong to say that Chen Hong is not a top player, but I see far more serious errors done by journalists.
Maybe that's the only game IBF watched between Lee HI and Chen Hong. At that time, Lee HI was very good, he even claimed world number 1 position for 1 week ever. That's the best time for Lee HI in his career. But before Lee HI took the number 1 position from Chen Hong, Chen has been there for more than 1 year. That's the difference. There is no surprise that Lee HI beat Chen Hong in Sudirman, since Lee HI was the best that moment. But Chen Hong has been the best for years already, he got his own Sudirman even 4 year earlier than Lee HI. Just like biased fan, IBF only sees one match it needs and ignores the other 100 matches on purpose.
