agree... lxl is very proficient at both front and back his serves are excellent and impossible to be attacked and flexible! to be able to beat both bo/mo and ahsan/setiawan on the way to the final is a testament that they are a force to be reckoned with
yup ~ luv the way LXL serves ... is hard to do a return attack his way of playing drive and other shots are like intuitive nice game and really enjoy the match
His jump smash is very awkward though. It can still be effective though when he has time to set it up. But his body positioning is very strange and not very efficient. If Qiu can improve his defense and other small areas of his game, this pair can be world #1.
first i am glad they beat boe/mogensen because they are probably the only Danish players i dislike, actually just Boe because he's such a sore loser with no sportsmanship, and a crybaby. anyway, watching this chinese pair play for the first time for me was way different than what i had expected. when they are on, their shorts are amazing and on par with CY/FHF. the thing that really bugged me all afternoon while watching was the inconsistency. it's like you feel this momentum in the game going and suddenly you're being pulled to a complete stop because one of them made an error. but i have to tell you, even when they were down, they still got the mental capacity to pull themselves back up!!! that to me are what mental giants do!!! and they are so quick i had a hard time following them on my monitor, imagine watching it live....woohoo, what a treat!!!
Great to see this younger MD pair's great performance, and hope they can continueto improve. In an interview after London Olympics, when Cai/Fu were asked about the gap between them and China's younger MD pairs, Cai/Fu answered that actually the younger generations were already pretty good and they lost most of their internal practice matches before olympics, which really surprised me at the time. Now this seems to have been proved by the recent two events in German and Britain. Below is a link for part of a practice match between Qiu/liu and Cai/Fu. http://video.sina.com.cn/v/b/98962119-1884154274.html
wow... looking at that video, liu is definitely the playmaker out of the four, and he won most of the points off his racket... impressive how he has been under the radar all this time and now china team has decided to unleash him onto the world stage
I have a quick question, I swear I saw Chai Biao on the coaches bench at final of the All England 2013, is he not playing anymore? what is going on? and if he does play who does he actually play with now a days?
i think the commentators were saying sometimes they have players on the coaching chair to scope out the opponents as well as learning how to be a better player because you see it a bit clearer from the coaching chair.
I was there and I was pretty impressed by their mid-court game. They were the drive kings and didn't let the japanese attack too much. They kept the shuttle flat, won most of the drives and net plays. A completely different playing style. But very effective. Both of them are not the big smashers. I'm looking forward to see some improvements by Qiu Zihan in smashing. Rackets: QZ: N50-II LXL: N70 - but I'm not 100% sure
In the All England, Chai Biao played with Zhang Nan. But in the Swiss Open and German Open Chai Biao played with Hong Wei. The coaches are trying to find the best partner for Chai Biao and the best role for him. The problem is, there is only 1 Liu Xiaolong. There aren't any other front court players to pair with Chai or HongWei. Zhang Nan is a great all around player, but he isn't really a pure net player (like Cai Yun, Liu Xiaolong, Setiawan, etc).
What impressed me more about this pair in 2013 AE is their bravery on court as relatively young/less experienced pair on international stage. Facing Boe/Mogensen in R2, critical points in decider game, with all the well-known antics from the Danish pair, yet they can survive and even win the match. Interesting to see if they can always bring those positive thing with them on their next journey. Only time would tell how far will this pair can go.
