Yonex should be glad to have Indonesia's Markis Kido & Hendra Setiawan at the 2009 Badminton Asia Championships. But for them, the final line-up is a marketing disaster for Yonex racquets. Take a look at the list: Men's Doubles Markis Kido & Setiawan Hendra vs Ko Sung Hyun & Yoo Yeon Seong Yonex vs Victor Women's Doubles Lee Hyo Jung & Lee Kyung Won vs Ma Jin & Wang Xiaoli Victor vs Li Ning Men's Singles Chen Long vs Bao Chunlai Li Ning vs Li Ning Women's Singles Zhu Lin vs Xie Xingfang Li Ning vs Li Ning Mixed Doubles Lee Yong Dae & Lee Hyo Jung vs Yoo Yeon Seong & Kim Min Jung Victor vs Victor It's also interesting that neither Kido nor Setiawan is using new racquets. The much-vaunted ArcSabers seem to have vanished from the courts. And what's worse for Yonex is that there isn't a single top player using the 'amazing' Nanospeed 9900. So much for its 'match-winning abilities' and 'incredible' whatnot More and more professional players appear to be ditching Yonex. Even Sho Sasaki, once a big fan of the AT-700, is now using Wilson. (It's ironic that a Japanese player doesn't want a Japanese racquet.) Credit him though with being able to smash much harder than before. On more than just a few occasions, Bao Chunlai was left stranded! The next major venue is the 2009 Sudirman Cup in mid-May. Yonex must be hoping that Malaysia or Indonesia make it to the top. If not, Yonex will have to come up with something more than just hollow, promoted claims to remain attractive to non-professional players.
Damnit, I just a 2nd hand ARC10 and thought to sell it out if it does not work out for me. Maybe I should not take too long to decide.
Hi Oldhand, just wondering if you know if the website of Li Ning shows its racket range? The website I went to didnt seem to have anything on badminton products at all....
I believed that Li Ning bought out Kason and rebranded Kason racquets as Li Ning racquets. Kason has always sponsored the Chinese players when they are not playing for the National team. Li Ning's main products are clothing and shoes although obviously it is expanding after securing sponsorships for China's National sports teams (re: Olympics Games clothing, etc)
lol interesting piece. Though I don't think they will have much problem with the majority of the badminton player fan base not supporting the products. Though... you do have to wonder about a few things... How has this economic recession hit Yonex? Could that have played a factor in not being able to renew the team sponsorship of China?
As I have posted countless times about wrongly crediting new racquet technology to Yonex instead of the fiber raw materials manufacturers, we can now see the mirth being debunked. Also remember those who swear by Yonex racquets bearing the JP, CN, etc. being the best of the best must look like fools now, with egg on their faces. Just like a herd following a leader, we will now see many going over to Li Ning. All the new hi-tech fiber materials are available to any racquet manufacturer in the world, so no one racquet manufacturer can claim to "invent" new technology. They can only call it by another name, and at most register just that "funny" name. But they cannot patent the new technology of the fiber because it does not belong to them-racquet manufacturere have absolutely no idea or expertise in making hi-tech fibers. In view of the above "level playing field" in fibers availability to all, the use of famous player gives the sponsor an added marketing edge, not a technology edge. As a matter of fact the best racquets in the world are made by a specialist company in China but it makes no money, becauses it uses the best fibers but cannot sell at a profit because not many people will buy a racquet brand with no name at very high prices. It has a name that has never been heard before. Its marketing is non-existing.
funny that u r now taking credit for debunking the superiority of JP/ CN /CP coded rackets when I (and bluejeff) have already done so before u came onboard BF in 2004. You're a bit late on this i'm afraid. You only added to the later disussion when some later members were inquiring about different coded rackets. FYI, Yonex had always officially said there is no quality difference in different coded rackets that are made in Japan rackets. Also, best rackets in the world doesn't necessary mean using the best carbon fibers. Hmmm, i didn't find any racket manufacturers making claim of inventing new proprietory technology. They all have the rights to market their products with their trademark and trade name, it is no more different than your Effortless Power E-10000 claim. When u said many have switched to LN, so far, i only saw one team does that, china, and we still don't know yet if ALL chinese players have switched to LN rackets. One team doesn't equal to many. Have LN racket sales in china gone through the roof that i didn't know of yet?
Hmm, the new high tech fibre may not have been invented by the racket company but was the use of the high tech fibre in badminton rackets pioneered by yonex? For example has fulleren been used by another racket company prior to yonex? It is certainly not "new technology", but it may bring a new (good or bad) "experience" for racket play....at least, that was what's been marketed... My gut feeling is that probably, as long as one is not using a wooden or aluminium racket like in the long long past, (ie most of the graphite rackets+/- "newer" molecular components), material-wise, most of the "modern" rackets are pretty much the same.....how else can professionals switch effortlessly between brands of rackets? Ultimately it is the individual's skills that matters...just my two cents worth
well, it was yonex who made the first all graphite racket. Like them or not, yonex tend to lead in applying latest materials in racket design, like boron, titanium, nanocarbon. Other racket brands sure like to ride on yonex's success, rather then to lead. Of course, sometime yonex imitate/improve on other makers design too.
Cooler, you are a master of twisting facts and in particular on what I post. First I did not claim to take credit for debunking the mirth surrounding JP, CN, etc. Second,all I said was that those who made this claim would be seeing eggs on their faces now. What I tried to say was that the so-called new technology in new fibers are inventions of fiber manufacturers, not racquet manufacturers like Yonex as the public would wrongly conclude. Third, I did not say that many have now switched over to Li Ning, which you seem to claim proudly after twisting my words. Now hear this, what I said was that players will be switching over to Li Ning. "Will switch" and "u said many have switched to Li NIng..." are very different meaning. You take great pains and go to great extent in slandering me, it seems.
Just a fortnight ago, Chen Long was wielding the AT-900T. Now he is using a Li Ning racquet with almost the same colour scheme. It emphasises the fact that the racquet doesn't make the player Bao Chunlai was one of the first players spotted using the ArcSaber 10. It's another matter that he didn't win a single tournament with it. Now that he switched to Li Ning, he finally has a title to show
This may work out to be good for Malaysia and Indonesia, the two last large still standing "forts" of Yonex. These two countries should initiate preliminary discussion with both Li Ning and Victor, and then renegotiate with Yonex for better terms. Let these 3 sponsors bid against each other. Without these two countries' top players wearing and using their equipment and names, these companies might end up selling to the fringe market instead.
Carbon graphite was first invented in Britain in 1963. The major oil companies or their chemical divisions were the first to make carbon graphite specifically to be used in space technology. Use in sports equipment and racing cars were a minor spin-off from aerospace application. The giants of carbon graphite fibers are Toray Chemicals and DuPont Chemicals. China has probably thousands of such chemical companies making similar carbon graphite fibers. One of their many small customers for such fibers include Yonex, Victor, fake racquets, Kason, Wilson, Ashaway, etc., etc. This is the true perspective of who is who in racquet technology.
I think everyone would be like that.....personally i feel YY made a great racket, but they set their price too high
take a look at this article link http://www.chinavalue.net/Blog/BlogThread.aspx?EntryID=145469 n this http://www.chinavalue.net/Blog/BlogThread.aspx?EntryID=145467 小编亲眼在李宁公司见到了国家队用拍,还挥舞了几下,算是国内最早的人之一吧 -This article roughly states that representative of yoger.com.cn (one of the online sports equipment store who has secured the rights to selling the new lining range of racquets now being used by the china national team) is one of the earliest few who had went down to the lining company and personally saw the national team trying n playing with various new models of lining racquets and tried them himself and the racquets model names are catagorised into 4 chinese characters, mainly 风,火,林,山 or storm , flame, wood and rock respectively. The following are excerpts from the articles with my own translation. hope u can understand. 风: 御凌风:STORM N70 疾影风: STORM N77 分析,就像是YONEX的顶级羽拍NS系列一样,N的意思代表NANO,纳米的意思,应该是目前最好的羽毛球拍科技了。(top range of racquets similar to yy nanospeed series) 代言人(users known as at date of article) :傅海峰(fu haifeng),谢杏芳(xie xingfang) 火: 炫雷火:FLAME N50 霹雳火: FLAME N55 分析:这款羽拍强调爆发力(this range is mainly for attacking/explosive style of play) user: 陈金( chen jin) 林: 啸天林:WOODS N90 代言人(user): 猛男丹 ( lin dan) 山: 纤仭山:ROCKS N30 云动山:ROCKS N33 (opinions of the racquets tested by the rep) 根据优个网(www.yoger.com.cn )小编的测试,所有的羽拍都很重,很硬,很暴力 -all racquets tried are all rather heavy,stiff and very explosive 从颜色上来说,火与林系列都是红色,不过红色有点不太一样。 -flame n wood series colour is red but a slightly different kind of hue.(xie xingfangs racquet does look reddish pink) 风系列是蓝色,有点素雅的蓝色。 - storm series colour is blue 山系列是有点白色和黑色搭配,很有点中国画的色彩。 - rock series colour is white n black combined, a bit like the chinese calligraphy type of colour.( think this description fits the racquets being seen in the hands of wang lin, zhu lin , chen long, dai pengyu etc) thats about all. those who can help translate better feel free to edit my post. hope to see the close up pics n specs soon! p.s. www.yoger.com.cn states that sales of the lining racquets will be mid april. Sounds like very soon huh ?
