Indeed there was Morten Frost. You can find the youtube links on http://www.youtube.com/user/bwf/videos OR here on http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php/138060-India-Grand-Prix-Gold-2014-(2014indGPG)
You are correct. According to the BWF records, XS' birthday is 1/22/1994. However, I am not sure if he is the next CL (maybe THW is ahead of him) and his style reminds me another great player Yang Yang during the 80's.
I noticed Xue Song took a while to adjust to his opponents' style of play as evident in the IND Open GPG, imho. Against S Varma, an attacking player, in R3, he was trying to out-attack him, then in the QF and SF against S Dey and A Prakash, two rallying stroke players, he was playing a patient manoeuvring game, and,finally, against K Srikanth, a fast and furious attacker, he struggled at first to cope with his strong opponent's frenetic pace before he got the hang of it. Well, he's barely into the first year of his international career (excluding his junior days), there's still a lot for him to learn. So far, he's doing all right, not as good as I hoped for initially but well enough. Only time will tell how far he can go, I shan't speculate too much.
If I may take the liberty to say so, I would liken K Srikanth to Lee CW and Xue Song to Chen Long (previously when I first saw XS play last year at the beginning of his career,I'd say he is more like Lin Dan, the attacker).
Young starting-out LCW, CL, LD or the current ones? not too long ago, guru used to dominate srikanth, and sai praneeth could control the game's pace with him well. srikanth has a good future awaiting him - provided he continues to improve and add to his game. safe to say that then he'd be fit to carry on the legacy of chetan anand, anand pawar, kashyap and ajay jayaram for india (in the 2nd tier, not-so-top MS in the last decade or so)! Song seems to have all the needed ingredients in his game, he just needs continuous exposure
1st pic left to right Qingchen Chen, Yi Fan Jia, Kaixiang Huang, Li Junhui, Liu Yuchen (right corner)
Srikanth's performance in the 3rd game was badly affected by poor judging and line calls. Xue Song was given an extra point in the 2nd game. The BWF graph is also incorrect. 5:18:05 the score announced is 1:4 5:18:27 XS serves from the left, loses the point 5:18:40 on-screen 5:1, problems with the referee’s scoreboard 5:19:54 SK serves from the left, wins the point 5:20:19 on-screen 6:1, announced 6:2 5:20:35 SK serves from the right and into the net 5:20:43 on-screen 6:2, announced 6:3 5:21:00 the referee shows XS he has 3 points and tells him to serve from the left. XS makes 5 points in a row to lead 8:6 Finally, the 3rd game started with a bad line call causing Srikanth to make more errors. When he regained his spirit, it was too late to stop XS on the way to his first ever GPG title.
I watched the match only today and I wanted to tell what I inferred from this match. Though srikanth lost, I must say, he was the better player than xue song. He has that very powerful smash which won him most of the points he earned. Xue sing could return only 4 or 5 smashes back. And also, his deceptive flicks and net play were excellent. He is still in need of vast improvement. On the other hand, xue song (who practices alongside all the world champions and olympics champions) has all round game with less errors. Srikanth does not like to rally. He simply wants to finish the match as quickly as possible. That's why he had to pay the price. And also, pressure of playing in front if home crowd and continuous coaching hindrance in between rallies really shattered him. Let's see how xue song plays when he meets srikanth again . He has already beaten jan o jorgensen , boonsak ponsanna, sho sasaki, son won ho, hu yun . These are some of the notable top 10 players needed to be mentioned. He is just 20 years old. Xue song is already a complete player, I must say. Whereas, srikanth still needs improvement in many areas. Still he almost won the match. Thanks to xue song for showing srikanth's weaknessess. Definitely he will look into that and improve further. Nobody will be able to forget how he grabed one game from lee chong wei in ibl .
My friend, you may have missed another "first and only in history". Surely this must be the first time ever that the whole contingent from a visiting or home country is playing in the semifinal stage. I have not watched the DX-Saina match. If what you said about the line calls is true then a more sensational piece of badminton history could have been made with the whole visiting contingent involved in the final stage. I am, of course, aware that many countries did not send participants or their best except the host. 祝大家新年快樂!
It wouldn't be good for any sport. Imagine WC soccer has Brazil vs Brazil, Italy vs Italy or Germany vs Germany in the final.
Line calls were much better than china and korea. Everybody know what happens there and how they will try to win matches. Lol.
Infact the line calls went against saina which eventually helped deng xuan in that match. Deng xuan is a good actor. Deng xuan's smash went directly out and it was clearly visible. No question and doubt in that.