Huang Nanyan has retired and returned to her province team. there are now 4 pairing in the Chinese army: Huang Sui/Gao Ling Zhang Xulin/Chen Lin Yang Wei/Zhang Ziwen Wei Yili/Zhao Tingting i am not too familar with the style of Zhao Tingting. however, it is custom for the Chinese to pair up one "smart" player with a "workhorse". Ge Fei (smart)/Gu Jun(workhorse) was that way. so is HuangSui (WH) and Gao Ling(S). Yang Wei is now the WH for the pair and Zhang Ziwen is definitely the smart one. other news includes the retirement of Dai Yun and Liu Yong. both went back to their respective province team. Ji Xinpeng the Olympic gold medalist is now a coach.
Well, that's nice for Ji. Is he coaching provincials now? Also, when you referred to Zhang ziwen, is she the same person as Zhang Jiewen, who used to be partner to Wei Yili??
I feel really bad for Ji Xinpeng... even though I was absolutely rooting for Hendrawan during the Olympic finals. It's depressing to see a player go down like this... better luck to him in future. Hopefully he will find greener pastures and bluer skies as a coach...
Ji is now national team coach. yeah. i should have typed Jiewen insead of Ziwen.. oh. more facts and news on this. Liu Yong and Dai Yun are bf/gf. so they are planning to go back to their province and getting married at the end of the year. an interview with Liu says they are planning to seek a place to play in a foreign country and to study there. that sound so familiar now. i wonder if we will see Liu or Dai pop up in the US anytime soon.
agree with Adel. it is sad to see how Ji rose and fell like an exploding star. being a national coach is a good consolation prize for Ji IMHO. the report says he will start teaching juniors. and he said that he will teach all that he has learned, both the positive and negative aspects of it. "He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches." -Bernard Shaw
Liu Yong pair up with Tony Gunawan? On another note, what about the men's doubles? That leaves Chen Qi Qiu without a partner.
neh dun think tony gunawan can partner liu yong... both of them are considered the "setter" players and in a pair ideally there should be one attacker and one setter... that's why the halim/tony pair so good! tony is good at setting while halim's smash i do not need to elaborate! (sometimes the way halim smash gives me the impression he got neck problem!) another thing, how old is daiyun and ji xinpeng? i know liu yong is quite old already. but daiyun should be err, mid 20s ?
According to the Chinese squad to JVC Asian Championship, mens double pairing are : Wang Wei/Cai Yun (world junior champion ?) & Zhang Wei/Chen qiqui. Mixed double pairing : Chen qiqui/Zhang jiewen, Sang yang/Gao ling, Wang wei/Zhao tingting & Zhang jun/Goa ling (alternative?)
a little more news from some Chinese article. in an interview, Liu Yong says he will be going back to play for his Jiang Xu province team. he will be playing MD with Sun Jun. he says he will need to play another national championship tournament, and by the time that's done, he will be 30 yrs old and then he will go abroad. he is 27 right now. his reason for leaving the team is that he feels that there are a lot of talented young players and that although he is able to stand another couple years in the national team, he won't be able to keep up with the youngsters in terms of training intensity.
