On a lark, I caught this All England 2008 first-round encounter between China's 22-year-old Lu Yi and Singapore's 23-year-old Kendrick Lee. Ignore Lee's showboaty excesses and Yi's silly errors... and see this match for what it really is: - a breathtaking exhibition of amazing speed, explosive power, jaw-dropping reflexes and fantastic wristwork! Move aside, all you slowpokes... this is what badminton is gonna be. On second thought, this is what badminton already is If you'd like to see the action, check out this post by the truly generous jack200603 PS: The twerps behind that silly ranking for ESPN should indeed view this match.
Thanks for pointing this vid out..I'd have missed it. Interesting poll from espn and frankly I'm surprised badminton was even listed knowing that its an American site and how low regard and low profile the sport is given there. It only ranks behind tennis among racket sports. And if you look at the individual stats, the one one stat that weighed negatively against badminton was nerves(ability to overcome fear). Didn't even know that that was a component in sports but nevertheless if you take that one stat out the sport actually favors very well.
clearly the people at ESPN know nothing.. they've put that tennis requires more speed and agility and flexibility that badminton and squash... the nerves thing is a bit of a rubbish quantifier.. by the looks of it they mean courage as autoracing, diving and bull/rodeo are the ones that score high there. quite how they've decided that badminton requires less hand-eye co-ordination than tennis/squash i've no idea.. another case of money being the object.. since badminton doesn't get coverage it gets ranked lower.. a load of BS in my opinion..
If Lu Yi is the future of badminton I will be dissapointed. He has very poor shot selection, is not that quick and doesn't have any weapons. I would say he is very similar to Chen Yu. Kendrick Lee...I have never seen his play.
james, you've got me in splits Neither Lu Yi nor Kendrick Lee is hardly the future I exulted about. You really really need to see this video. Forget who's playing... and watch just the on-court action. I'm certain you'll be amazed as well
kendrick's pretty good, but being only 1-2 years younger than LD and LCW, and still pretty far off the pace of these 2, i can't see him being a good advert for the next generation.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I said "forget the players, watch the game"! This kind of badminton is the future.
hahaha, i was kinda mislead by your title actually. in my defence, i was writing my post whilst you were replying, so there was no way i could have known what you were gonna say.
frankly, when i saw the match live on planetbadminton, i do see what you mean about the sport changing a bit. in terms of sheer speed and how the players must adjust to each other's style of play. Kendrick had loads of deceptive strokes as well as the speed to come to the net and kill it. While Lu Yi had great defence and endurance to match Kendrick's speed. If this match was any indication of badminton's future (as in where it's heading), than i agree with you Oldhand, it definately looks bright and entertaining!
