You think Derek will get whipped? Maybe not so bad. Honestly, I haven't seen Lin Dan playing very well yet, not pushed by his first two opponents so far.
Friday schedule is puzzling. Court 2 has two matches but starts at 10pm. Courts 3 and 4 have their last matches starting "not before 10:40pm". CCTV starts its broadcast at 7:30pm. So we will see the end of Gu Juan vs Hui XiRui match and then Derek Wong vs Lin Dan.
[TABLE="class: ruler matches"] [TR] [TD][/TD] [TD]MS [/TD] [TD="align: right"][TABLE] [TR="bgcolor: transparent"] [TD="align: right"]Zi Liang Derek Wong [4][/TD] [TD][/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [/TD] [TD="align: center"]-[/TD] [TD][TABLE] [TR="bgcolor: transparent"] [TD][/TD] [TD]Dan Lin[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] C'mon.....go Derek, go. Time to stand up and be counted. You are the 4th seed.
The only INA rep in the China Masters GPG, Praveen Jordan/Debby Susanto [4] barely survived their first match as they narrowly beat the MAS pair in 3 tough-sets: 19-21, 22-20, 21-12. The key was the second-set where the MAS pair was leading 17-13 and then 19-17, only to eventually be overtaken by Jordan/Debby 20-19, before ending it 22-20. As the fourth-seed, they are expected to reach the SF but they face a tricky match against the CHN pair of Wang Yilv/Xia Huan in the QF. It's always possible to lose to a lower ranked CHN pair. Just look at how the top-seed in XD Danny/Vanessa of Singapore lost to Liu Yuchen/Huang Dongping in 3-sets. If Jordan/Debby are to rise to INA's no 2 pair, they have to be able to stand the test of beating CHN pairs at their home ground and it will start tomorrow. A possible Final re-match against Lu Kai/Huang Yaqiong [3] awaits them if they can clear the next 2 rounds.
Court 2 only has 2 matches while other three courts have 6, strange arrangement. Riki/Richi had good outcome last week, they should be motivated to score better performance after yesterday thrilling match. QUARTERFINALS (06.30pm, 4 courts) => https://www.tournamentsoftware.com/...412A4B-D8FA-47EA-B08C-5FD6C454AB60&d=20140418 Two Singaporean WS will be the only challenge for home shuttlers and either Ng Ka Long or Wei Nan is CHN MS main test.
I just hope Derek will give of his best and earn as many points from him. I hope LD will not let his guard down as he did against Ronald Susilo long ago in one of the Olympics!
Yes Derek give LD back a taste of his own medicine for depriving badminton fans of his presence for so long ...!
Not impossible or not highly improbable. That would be such a wake-up call it'll force Lin Dan to seriously train harder and earnestly take part in more tournaments to regain his competitive edge and top form if he is intent on aiming for Rio'16. It'll mean that just having his physical trainer with him six-days-a-week is not good enough to compensate for lack of racquet training and tournament practice (even more essential). Don't forget in December last year in the CBSL, he suffered his first defeat at the hands of Tian Houwei and then Xue Song's in the space of 48 hours. The two losses ended his years of unbeaten record at the CBSL. Yes, this is Derek's best chance to catch the 'rusty' Lin Dan off-guard, spring a surprise on him, and gain instant fame. If he misses this golden opportunity, the chance will go to Lin Dan's next opponent, and the next, and so on until someone does it but not for too long as Lin Dan will definitely be back at the top of his game in good time. Derek, go for it !
Another disappointing defeat for Praveen Jordan/Debby Susanto. As feared, they cannot even clear QF, losing to an unranked CHN pair Wang Yilv/Xia Huan 11-21, 20-22. They were 1 pt away from forcing rubber-set at 20-18, only for the CHN pair to win 4 pts in a row and won it in straight-sets. With this defeat, I think the coaches must be very unsure of the pair's prospect against even higher ranked CHN pairs and I am personally disappointed that they cannot even fulfill their seeding (SF) in this tourney Jordan/Debby will rise up to the top 40 of the rankings table and 3 more tourneys to go to make it 10 tourneys. They will still need to qualify for the INA SSP in June as there's no more GP/GPG tourneys between now and June.
