TEAM INA MS -- no Alamsyah and Tommy Sugiarto Indra Bagus Ade Chandra Bandar Sigit Pamungkas Andre Kurniawan Tedjono Ari Yuli Wahyu Hartanto Dionysius Hayom Rumbaka WS -- where's Febe? Pia Zebadiah Fransisca Ratnasari Aprillia Yuswandari Yuan Kartika Putri Maria Elfira Christina Sylvinna Kurniawan Febby Angguni MD Bona Septano/Mohd Ahsan -- 8th seed, expect at least QF placing. Lingga Lie/Fernando Kurniawan Ahmad Tantowi/Viki Indra Okvana Rian Sukmawan/Yonathan Suryatama Dasuki -- 6th seed, high hopes on them to enter at least SF or even Final. Main challengers: Chan Chong Ming/Hoon Thien How (don't know if they are going to be withdrawn with CCM's retirement from BAM) and Gan Teik Chai/Lin Woon Fui. Rendra Wijaya/Fran Kurniawan -- unseeded, but looking from their performance in the Dutch Open, expect at least a QF also (with a kind draw). WD Nathalia Poluakan/Yulianti -- with Richi participating in the WJC, Nathalia Poluakan has a rare chance of participating in a GP event. Nadya Melati/Devi Tika Permatasari Meiliana Jauhari/Shendy Puspa Irawati -- top-seed, but with Zhao Tingting/Yu Yang's participation, they better pray they are not drawn with the Chinese pair in the early rounds XD Mohd Rijal/Devi Tika Permatasari -- with Greysia temporarily concentrating in WD, Rijal is being paired with Devi Tika for the next few smaller tourneys Ahmad Tantowi/Yulianti -- expect at least a SF placing. Yonathan Suryatama Dasuki/Meiliana Jauhari
I heard Coach Fang Kaixiang wants to train Febe extra hard to win against the top 3 INA WS players (Pia-Firda-Maria Kristin) in the National Championships... And besides, she just returned from the 2-week-long World Junior Championships... thus she won't have enough time to recover for the Vietnam Open... Supposedly, since Coach Fang is 67 years old this year, he wants to make sure his last pupils like Febe, Hayom, Andre, etc. can be shaped as future champs as soon as possible [before he retires for good...]
Make sense...I think Febe can beat Pia and Firda. Both players' performance this week were so atrocious....losing out in early rounds Maria Kristin is slightly more stable than both the other 2 Pelatnas players.
I think CHN will dominate 3 events: MS: Chen Yu WS: Wang Lin, Wang Yi Han and Zhu Jing Jing ( my pick: Wang Yi Han) WD: Zhao Ting Ting/Yu Yang...tough for Mel/Shendy