just can't wait to see her in WBC.. love her fighting spirit.. hopefully she defend her title.. she has to win or she will lose a lot of points..
wish she and the other chinese players played in the IBL, it would have been very useful to promote the game here.
LXR has the path to her 3rd majors open for her to win her 1st WC as her #1 opponent was out. At a young age, if LXR wins WC13, then only AG left to complete the slam.
WYH's is in a inconsistency form for some time now.. continually sliding down the world ranking, and currently at 6th spot.. wondering what had happen to her
If I was Li Yongbo, I would kick her out of the national team and send her back to her home province. If one had seen her match against Uchida today, one would have been appalled - it's one thing to try hard and unfortunately just have your opponent be better; it's another thing entirely to play like you're not trying at all and actively want to lose.
Yeah, it's a pain to watch WYH a pale shadow of her former self;the WYH I know is gone; to make it worse, she's not even trying hard to get back as mrinalini put it. I feel she needs to take a break to sort out her problems, whatever they are (personal, family, health,etc.).
she was lucky she beat ithanon yesterday....wyh play without strategy, purely rely on strength & stamina
WYH cannot strategies anything as RI is so skillful and deceptive with fabulous footwork - so she uses her fitness, stamina and reach to chase and keep the birdie in play and hope for the best. RI lost because she lack match fitness after the long layoff but she is merely upping her ranking points to qualify for dec masters final - I think even she and her coach knows her level is below her best and not in position to win Denmark open, and unfortunately the draw do not favour her and she has to play her boogie opponent!
Yup, RI lost because she could not sustain the attack where her fitness wasn't good. She cleared many shots towards the end of the 3rd game which she should have smash down the line. WYH is tall and clears won't hurt her. In fact, some of the clears were smashed by WYH.
In fact most of Chinese women players do have good strategy and rely on power & stamina. Totally agreed that RI is so skillful and deceptive with fabulous footwork
I beg to differ. WYH didn't win purely by her superior stamina (which hasn't been good of late) or strength (if so her smashes would not be easily returned) or height advantage but more by her ability to read Intanon's game fairly well. As the commentators rightly pointed out, she used her brains and the right tactics to counter her opponent's game as the match progressed. Some of Intanon's errors were not unforced and she had to change her shots such as overhead smashes down the line or cross courts when she realized WYH was beginning to anticipate them better. It's not like Intanon suddenly acquired her specialty shots which she didn't possessed before when she lost to WYH the previous encounters. That's just my opinion.
Yes, WYH was running all over the court as I've said in the tournament thread but that happened mostly in the first half or so of the match. But as she began to read and anticipate Intanon's shots better towards the latter half, she managed to adjust her game better, cut down her errors and gradually pushed Intanon hard, even sending her opponent scrambling across the long diagonal on a few occasions. Also Intanon's favourite cross court net play was sometimes expected by WYH. Btw, being able to run all over the court and retrieve the opponent's shots, not lose them too often, is a mark of amazing retrieving ability. But doing that all the time can be very tiring, that's why it's also necessary,nay essential, to read the opponent's game well enough which saves you from having to scurry for them every time. At the same time, anticipating your opponent's shots more often than not means you can reach the shuttle earlier to give yourself more options and turn defense into attack sometimes or even simply go on the offense when the opportunity arises. Again, just my 2cents.