China - Indonesia : 1-1 Bao Chun Lai loss Taufik Hidayat : 15-7 12-15 13-15 Zhou Mi bt Maria Kristin : 11-8 11-8 I so surprised to see how Maria Kristin (17 yo) played. After beat Julia Mann 11-9 11-7, she played very well tonight before lost 8-11 8-11 from Zhou Mi.
Why is that every time Taufik defeats the top China players the score is so close and always down the wire. It happened with Chen Hong in Ina Open, with Lin Dan in Asian Games and now with Bao. I think Msia and Ina know sth about men's singles tactics that China( or more precisely Li Yong Bo) may not be aware of.Also none of the China players have beaten him recently.
No doubt... with the 2-1 lead, China has virtually confirmed their finals ticket. I believe China would prefer to meet the Danes rather than the Koreans. Against the Koreans, they are almost certain to lose the MD while the other 4 matches could go either way. Pitting against the Danes however, WD is theirs for taking while the remaining 4 matches are 50-50 (have realistic chance to win the MD as well). Go CHINA!!
I wonder if nationalistic Indonesian fans are gonna have something against Candra/Sigit after today?? Li YB is always formulating new MD pairs from the list of available players and perhaps this time he succeeded? Regarding MS, Bao and Taufik played extremely close match and really Taufik's edge in experience won it I think. By playing Bao, Li YB will most definitely use Chen Hong against Korea/Denmark tomorrow. Maria Kristin played well, but Zhou Mi must have been under much stress after seeing Bao lose the rubber set. The question now is who would China want to win tonight? China would fare better against Korean singles compared to Denmark but would rather play Danish doubles than the tough Koreans in that department as Ra/Lee have already beaten China when they faced a few days ago.
Korean's are leading Denmark 2 games to 1 as I'm typing this messsage, so I guess it is a safe bet that Team Korea will beat team Denmark. If Korea wins, I'm pretty certain that the Chinese WD team would love to play Ra/Lee to avenge their earlier loss . About the game between Bao Chunlai and Taufik, it's too bad that Bao has lost. Had he win, he would have gained confidence in critical Team Competition situations and redeemed himself from what had happened during the Thomas Cup.
The Danes have evened out to 2-2 against Korea. Last match (WD) is now in progress. Olsen/Jorgensen won 1st set against Ra/Lee...
How long did the ladies doubles match go on for? I read somewhere the whole tie lasted 5 hours! If the LD went on for a prolonged period and now that we are back to 15 points for LD scoring, perhaps we shall again see the 'conservative' drawn out rallies in LD. Perhaps that is not so good for creating excitement amongst spectators of the game.
Really long encounter! Oh yes this Denmark- Korea was a crazy game. The atmosphere was excellent. Imagine only the MD Danes winning the last points of their third set. The Danes were shouting so loud, and almost the whole assistence was cheering for Denmark. It was really tense. But then the Ladies Doubles came. Oh no, that took so long. Clear after Clear, then a drop then again a clear, everybody was whispering, but it was too long. That wasn't impressive any more. The nicest game I saw during the weekend was Taufik against Bao. May be as well the MD Indonesia against MD China, incredible returns but a lot of show and mistakes. Regards, Manuel
Steen Sleicher Pedersen, the Danish National Coach comments the loss to Korea thus: "I feel like I have just watched my mother-in-law drive off a cliff in my new car."