I don't follow the tournaments very closely, but when did Japan improve so much? I remember about 5 years ago when the men's doubles pairs used to barely make the second round and their women got nowhere (with the exception of Yonekura). Now they seem to have several decent men's doubles pairs, a strong women's doubles pair, and singles players too. They've had some very good results this year in the first round against strong pairs already. I always felt that they had quite a lot of pressure on them going into the All England because of its association with Yonex. With Mr Yoneyama watching, there were rarely any Japanese players past the quarter-finals. I guess these things go in cycles. It'll make for an interesting Olympics if they do well there and can only help badminton's popularity in Japan (= more money?).
they have been improving steadily since last year. and many believe (including myself) that it's mainly down to the efforts of your countryman, the legendary mr park.
Cool.... yes legendary yonex product should have good local players also... Its time for Japan not just producing rackets but players...hehehehe
I may be wrong but before PJB took over as coach,the players don't train together but in their own clubs.With PJB, they started centralised training and when you put a great coach and keen players together, eventually the result will show.The exciting part is their limit may not be reached yet.(So too for the CPE players) I'm delighted for them.
maybe yonex created some super rackets n only distributed among the japs players..lol.They did well this tournament..n hopefully we can see more of their performance in the future.Bring more colours to the competitions!
Park Joo Bong makes the difference in Japan team. AE 2008 KEITA MASUDA-TADASHI OHTSUKA BEAT MARKIS KIDO-HENDRA SETIAWAN 21-19,21-9 SHUICHI SAKAMOTO-SHINTARO IKEDA BEAT KOO KIEN KEAT-TAN BOON HEONG 21-18,21-19
Those results definitely show that they're not just having flashes of brilliance but are really capable of competing with top-level players. I suspect the MD world rankings are gonna see a good shake-up with upsets of last year's semi-finalists and winners.
Maybe in Olympics, we could see a Men's Doubles pair out of top 10 winning the Gold ..... No joke, that could actually happen, looking at how things have progressed.
This All-England simply produces too much upsets for me to take.... Imagine if Kido/Hendra were to win on Wed...they will be the overwhelming favorites to take the crown after so much carnage up to today. But...all the 3 top pairs now share the same fate...losing early to pairs they used to beat comfortably (esp Kido/Hendra and Fu/Cai)....unbelievable really
^^Good thing..^^ ..our Hau-ge decided to bail out from attending the AE this yr...By the rate things are going, if he were to go, who knows, he might not see any INA players competing in the last 2 rounds of competition (who to cheer for??)..Maybe he had a hunch things won't be looking rosy, with so many upsets, in this AE..hmmm..
As I said before, INA players don't have a good record at European tourneys in the past decade, with only the French Open XD title won last year and the Swiss Open MD title won by Candra/Sigit a few years back.
i think the japanese are getting better as opposed to the top players getting worst. well, maybe. but the japanese are showing a capability to beat top players quite consistently. so maybe it is not a too far fetched thinking that they have improved by leaps and bounds. Park must have done something good in japan. good for badminton i think. having more than just four country dominating will do badminton good.
I think the improvement is obvious now over the past few months, we see more and more appearance of Japanese players in the semi stage of all categories except XD. And I think SI/SS has just proven themselves again that their consistent victories over KKK/TBH is more than luck. And they again advanced by beating LP/JR just as I am typing right now. They are definitely the dark horse to watch for this year. (A Message for the PAWer)
Maybe in england,japanese foods r easy to find,n delicious..while indonesia n malaysian food is so rare n not so delicious.Well..for china,maybe it's because their cook is not coming with them this time.
Being top players r not so pleasant in some ways..in this casether teams will learn about how u play from the records..n then find some ways to beat ur game.Well..at least that makes it more competitive..
Now that Japan has Park Joo Bong and the MD is doing really well. How about getting Li Mao over and improve MS?
Just watched the match btw Ikeda/Sakamoto and JR/LP. The japs were very very good at flat shots and at the net. Unless KKK start to perform, if not i see more defeat to come.
