Zhang YaWen's titles ZYW + Zhang Dan 2004 Thailand Open, German Open 2005 Singapore Open ZYW+ Wei Yili 2006 Indonesia Open, World Champ runner-up ( lost to Gao + Huang) 2007 All England, Singapore SS, French SS 2008 Beijing Olympics (Bronze medal) ZYW + Zhao TingTing 2008 China Open SS, Hong Kong SS 2009 All England, Singapore SS, World Champ ZYW + Pan Pan: 2009 Denmark SS ZYW + Tian Qing: 2009 China Open SS ZYW + Xie ZhongBo: 2005 World Champ Runner-up (lost to Nova+Lilyana), Hong Kong Open 2006 China Masters, Indonesia Open, China Open , Doha Asian Games runner-up (lost to Gao + ZhengB) 2007 Macau GP Gold 2008 Thailand Open, Hong Kong Open, China Open
now ZYW added another achievement in XD to her long and brilliant CV, defeating the current WR#1 and No.1 seed LYD/LHJ with her brand new young partner TJM on LYD/LHJ's homeland at round 1 of Korea Open SS with 2 straight sets (21-13, 21-16) !!! what a player!!!
oh really!? just last night, one of my friend in the badminton court told me about Lee Yong Dae's R1 lost in Korea Open, he cant recall who the TRIUMPhant mixed partner was... alas! its ZYW! and partner. she's really one hell of a b@minton PL@YER
ZYW is really one heck of a fighter and genius!!! she is just full of fighting spirit and always has strong desire to win... it is her quality (both technically and mentally) the brings out the best from whoever partnered with her!!! I just cannot recall any other doubles player comparable to ZYW who could do that and win big with every and so many partners (7 all together??)!!!
but you must have her fierce determination and footwork to compensate... maybe more difficult for normal girls...
Have to say, she's one versatile lady. Guess she didn't have the luck of the draw in terms of partners and achievements at the 'prime honours' like Olympics and consistent partners. But really in terms of achievements in a holistic sense ( both breath and scope of wins) as a womens' doubles player, she probably ranks on par with Ge Fei and Gao Ling. Of course in terms of prestige and domination of the competition during their reign, both Ge Fei and Gao Ling will always outshine her. - 4 unbeaten years in all international competitions between 2 Olympic titles for Ge Fei and Gu Jun. With a mixed doubles world title somewhere in there for Ge Fei. - 2 Olympic mixed titles and 6 All-England ladies doubles for Gao Ling, something any player can only dream about.
like yu, they belong to the special class called 'tomboy' In xd, average to short lady partner can be a plus, harder for the opponent's shots to nail her on plus extra dexterity help her return smashes better Maybe except for Ra, i find tall gals like juhl and Lee Hyo Jung a little bit clumsy at times.
Again, ZYW got the Silver with changed partner. I'm also wondering, in spite of her great skills, why she seems to have had difficulties in grabbing the Gold in the finals. I thought it was partly due to her weak partners. But I might have to think about it more honestly. (When I watched their game in the first round beating the #1 seed LYD/LHJ, I thought they were a great team. But they lost to their team mates in the final.)
her new XD partner, Tao JM, is physically the same with her previous XD partner, Xie ZB. Both are tall.
