I think it is a worrying trend that the shelf life of a singles player nowadays is so short. In other sports, such as Tennis, there are players who dominate for a number of years. This used to be the situation in badminton but players just seem to come and go now. Flick through the list of All England champions and how often do you see it change hands in recent times? Compare with earlier years and you will find players who won a few times in a row, or a few times over a number of years. So with the promise of such players as Taufik, Sun Jun and Gade where have they now gone? It appears detrimental to the sport. Who are you supposed to hang a poster of on your wall? Who are you supposed to follow? Who are you supposed to be excited about playing? What tournaments do you wait for the clash of the titans match when there are no titans? Doubles does not seem to suffer as much from this problem, but has singles got too fast for it's own good?
I agree this is a worrying trend, the super competitive game takes it toll, and the physical demands on the players are incredible. Players such as Hoyer and Camilla have developed over the years and their game has improved with time, certainly in the far east players go for one olympics or a couple of worlds and are gone. I think it is particulary hard for the European fan as we only see these players at the All England are starved of coverage the rest of the year, making it difficult to find a player to support. be! A few years ago I thought Sun Jun and Gade would have a long rivalry but it was sadly not to be
The Malaysian shuttlers have a longer shelf life though. Although they have never been world champions, they could last the pace as among the best for 8-10 years. One of the great example is Ong Ewe Hock. Ong has consistently stays among the top 15 for the past 8 years.
I think this is only true for Chinese players. Chinese top level change very fast. But, china does not have any problem with badminton popularity as we have in the west. Most (offcourse not all) of the top players from Malaysia, Denmark, Indonesia, England, USA, Thailand etc. stays for some time, atleast 3 to 5 years or better. Hendrawan, Rasmussen, Hashim, Ong Ewe Hock, Camilla, Collin Haughton (1999 USOpen Champ), Sigit, Wijaya, Kevin Hans, Gopi, Gade (will be back soon after injury), are few non-chinese amoung so many top players who comes to mind.
It is all my opinion of course, but I am talking about top top level mens singles players. My Criteria is that the player must prove they are one of the Worlds best by consistently reaching the finals of a major championship, such as All England, World Championships, Grand Prix Finals etc. Frost, Yang Yang, & Zhao did this over an 8 year period when they were right at the top. For a player such as Sun Jun to make a similar record he will have to be reaching the finals of these championships in 2004 Gade must be doing it until 2007. While Ong Ewe Hock is a great player, he has never won one of the tournaments mentioned above. Contrast with players like Suprianto and Wiranata. Similarly the records of Gopi, Hendrawan and Rasmussen begin to pale in comparison. Although great players, they have not been able to sustain a long period right at the top of the game. Through injuries, this may be. My opinion is, however, that the places at the top are changing too rapidly and so are the titles. Perhaps this may be due to the rapid turnaround of Chinese players. Perhaps the system is now that they produce players who can last 3 or 4 years at the most and dominate the other Countries, which stops longer term players from reaching the finals. This is of course different to previous days where Yang Yang and Zhao had a long and prosperous career. Of course badminton in China is as popular as ever, but I cannot help feel as a fan of badminton that we are currently lacking 2-3 long term champions of mens singles. Personally I would have liked to have seen Sun Jun, Gade & Taufik battle it out over the next few years or so.
I agree that it would be good for the badminton if we have 2-3 icons (super names) for good number of years. I personally like Gade, Taufik, Bao Chunlai, Rasmussen and Hafiz. They all are very young except Rasmussen so we could expect them to hang around in badminton world for some time to come. On the other hand, the media creates icons. A good advertising agency can convert these name, especially Gade, Taufik and Camilla into a house hold names wherever badminton is popular. Advertising agency need commercial interest for their pay check. Whereas commercial interest needs audience with good purchasing power so they can push their products. What badminton need is to bring such people to watch games. Until then we may not have supernames in badminton. IMHO.
I agree UKP, it is necessary to have these sort of icons in the game, if only to become known to the public. For instance tennis is all about the big names, when Agassi, Sampras start losing it is a big story but afterwards the public interest wanes, who played in the WImbledon semis this year ? I only remember Hewitt! Often people arrive on the finals weekend at the All England, look to see who's playing and find 2 new players in the singles, new doubles pairs, so they have no real affinity or investment in the game , consequently the atmosphere is lacking. What sport needs is big names to clash in the finals, Hoyer and Arbi, Frost and Yang Yang, Wiranata and Zhao. This isn't just a factor of the short lifetime of the players , the baofe needs to do more to introduce the world class players throughout the year not just at that one weekend.
DLP.. Not that it matters much, but Wimbledon semifinal.. the other contenders were Tim Henman, Nalbandian and Xavier Malisse.. This is only to show that even though I am no tennis fanatic.. if there is interest in the sport.. then some people will also remember such details.. but not for long, so I basically agree with all you wrote.
Thanks for that klaphat! I don't follow tennis, I was just making the point that its much easy to generate interest around a personality who has become familiar over a long period.
Top level singles is very demanding physically. Only a few players can take that sort of intensity. Hoyer Larsen and Hendrawan spring to mind. Even looking carefully at both these players, they were/are not always consistent but attempt to peak at the right times. Style of play is important. Is it just a coincidence that both of these players have exceptional ability at the net area?
I would say the players with better fundamentals (basics) will be able to stay longer. Tang Xian Fu, Hou Jia Chang were still beating the top players outside China after their 30th birthday. Rudy Hartono, Zhao Jian Hua, Yang Yang, Morten Frost, Joko Suprianto, Alan Budi Kusuma were also able to maintain their level for quite sometime until they decided to retire. These players mastered well the basics, in my opinion. They excelled not only in their net play. Their overall skills plus tactical abilities were excellent. Liem Swie King was also an extraordinary. He had an awesome smash and tight net play. But that was not enough to win tournaments, especially as he grew older - older I mean after 24/25??
I don't know much about the how the Chinese team trains, but from what I do know about sports there in general and about the Chinese approach to things, my guess is that, with pressure from the Chinese national athletic governing body, the emphasis is on national team supremacy. As a result, they would work their players to the limit of human endurance for as long as they can take it. When the player burns out or is injured, there is plenty of eager, young talent to take that place. From those who would know, is this close to the truth?
From what I know, Chinese training focus a lot on physical fitness. They do not do things like they used to do. My coach (and also other former Chinese national and provincial payers) told me that they practiced a full day, 6 days a week. A normal day, practice started at 6 am and finished at about 9/10 pm with theretical/tactical discussions. Nowadays training methods are very different and more scientific. A Chinese table tennis coach (part of the 60 and 70's national team) mentioned the mistakes they made at those times. They followed the Japanese methods used to train the women's volleyball team the won the Olympics gold medal. The more you train the better results you get. After many injuries and early retirement by many elite athletes during the 60s and early 70's it was obvious they had to change their methods. In badminton, China do treasure their best players. One example is Zhao Jian Hua. He was spared training due to health but still held his place until he retired. During the 90's (after ZJHua, YY, Xiong Guo Bao, Zhang Ching Wu, Li Weng Bo, Tian Bying Yi, Chen Hong, Zhou JianCan retirement) there were quick change of players in the national squad. My opinion is because many replacing players were not as strong as their predecessors in the fundamentals. Most of them were not able to win tournaments regularly. Any country labelled as powerhouse would feel the pressure. Also during that time (coincidence??) we see the retirement of Wang Wen Jiao (probably China badminton success architect) and Hou Jia Chang. Tang Xian Hu was coaching Indonesia men's team and Indonesia captured gold and silver in the Olympics. Now Tang returned to coach China and we see a lot more talent in the Chinese team emerging. (For what I know, Chinese national coaches send directives to provincial coaches about the aspects they like to see in emerging players) I believe that players retiring and making way for new candidates a normal issue. Players will stay in the national team as long as they feel comfortable. Retirement is a normal thing to do when the pressure to stay at the top becomes uncomfortable. And in China, a badminton player (or any national level athlete) starts very young. One have to consider their own feelings/desires too. After all they are also humans like any of us.
I wonder what the punishment was for falling asleep during the tactical meetings. When this was the case, it's no wonder that so many players got completely out of the sport when they retired. It sounds like a military camp, or maybe worse. But, I guess it was a better life for many of them than what they would have had out in the provinces.
You may be surprised but these sessions used to be intense. To understand why you need to put on their shoes.
OK, so they weren't just boring meetings at the end of an exhausting day. Maybe I should rather ask if they had any arguments ending in fights. Anyway, viver, thank you for the insights into Chinese training methodology. I've always been curious about it. During the Olympics, we see how the famous Chinese gymnastics and diving teams are selected, live, and train, but no attention is paid to badminton.
Well boring or not depended on your interest. As far as I know, during my coach's player days there were quite a few passionate players. Theoretical sessions mostly involved reviews of the days training, skills improvement - i.e. strokes, footwork, and also things that had discussed here i.e. martial arts and badminton.
Apparently one of the reasons that many of the players are getting injured are because of the weights that they take. Under the chinese system the weights are extremely heavy and much much heavier than the weights the Europeans take, (excluding Gade). This is why it is very easy to pick up an injury and where most of the injuries are picked up from. I heard this off a former pro trained under the chinese system.
