Li Xuerui ( 李雪芮 )

Hope Justin L read this post, it will calm him down when LXR plays her next big match.

 

I hear you. I thought it should be 9 consecutive finals including the SSF'13 - anyway, where is the World Championship, not to mention the AG where she lost to WYH? At least at the AG final , she didn't play that badly but was stunned by WYH's relentless pursuit and never-say-die attitude to come back and win it playing one of her best badminton.

Another thing about LXR that I find worrisome is her proneness to error, the highest among the top players. True, attacking players tend to commit more mistakes than less offensive ones but, to me, she is way too erratic esp obvious when under (mostly self-induced) stress which I suspiciously attribute to her somewhat anxious disposition or nervous temperament.

I wish I'm wrong about her and that it's simply a case of overeagerness to win but I'm not convinced. How did it happen twice in a row after a one-year interval? The final match on each occasion was visibly sub-par on her part whilst her game the previous rounds was undoubtedly better by much the way she disposed of her opponents. However, the best argument is that at other times for the rest of the year she was practically in her all-conquering , winning ways - the contrast couldn't be greater.

In retrospect, it might have done her tremendous good to suffer setbacks or a bitter failure early on in her career, such as a R1 flop at the London Olympics reminiscent of Lin Dan's turning-point experience and then display the strength of character to bounce back strongly with sheer willpower and persistent determination to win the next two or three world championships, culminating in the Rio Olympic gold.

 

Hey, Justin, can you please translate the baido and google chinese pages of LXR.
I can update the wiki but don't yet speak putonghua. Also, the google translate really sucks, at least for chinese.

 

Devendra, the link (the main page) you posted http://baike.baidu.com/view/3522103.htm is about Li Xuerui's personal experience, biodata and some background information :

Li Xuerui, born January 24th,1991, in Chongqing, Dadukou district; Chinese female badminton athlete; Olympic Champion.

Li Xuerui was born in Fu Niuxi to a family of ordinary working people, her parents are workers of Chang Zheng (Long March) factory. At age 7 during a school vacation, LXR was sent by her parents to Dadukou district of central Chongqing municipality (formerly in Sichuan province) for a short-term badminton class at a school of physical training. In 1998 she entered the Dadukou school of physical training. In 2004, as a result of her outstanding innate skills, she entered the Chongqing badminton specialty team and for three consecutive years she won the national junior badminton championships in women's (girl's) singles.

In 2007, LXR represented the Chongqing 37th Central to compete at the World Schools Badminton Championships held at Spain and emerged champion. Then at the national 2nd team selection competition she achieved the number one position out of the 155 participants. In the space of one year between 2006 and 2007, LXR realized a 'triple jump' from national juvenile to national junior to national 2nd team.

In 2008, LXR won in succession the World Youth and the Asian Junior Badminton Team Championships as well as the Asian Junior Women's Singles title. At the 2008 China Open Superseries tournament, LXR for the first time participated in an adult international competition, she scored three consecutive victories to the quarterfinals and at the semifinals she encountered the then world champion Zhu Lin but was knocked out 0-2 owing to her lack of experience.

In 2009, LXR combined with Feng Chen and won the Chinese National Championship Women's Doubles gold. At the 11th Chinese National Games, her partnership with Pan Pan ended in defeat at the hands of Beijing Olympics Champion pair of Du Jing/Yu Yang at the semifinals stage to take bronze. At the end of 2009, LXR was selected into the national 1st team.

On 18th April 2010, the 19-yr-old LXR at the Badminton Asia Championships(held in New Delhi) prevailed over her teammate Liu Xin 2:1 in the final winning gold. This was not only LXR's maiden title at the adult level, it was also the first Asian Badminton WS title in Chongqing's badminton history. [Incidentally, LXR beat Saina Nehwal in the semifinals - translator's note].

In 2011, LXR won the Macau Open and the Thai Open Grand Prix Golds Women's Singles titles, her world ranking rose to within top 4; however, her name was not in the Olympic qualification preliminary list.

Come 2012....[since LXR's phenomenal achievements are already well-known and easily available on BWF records and here in this forum, I shan't go further into it].

 

Thanks Justin!
I will update the wiki page. It is such a pity that the world number 1 and certainly the best player in world today has two (yes, two!) lines written about her!
Please keep updating us about any other trivia for the wiki page.
I will also try to look into this thread itself for additional information.

 

Great, I'm sure many CHN fans, esp those in China who have no more than a smattering of English will be very thankful to you.

 

As of today, Li Xuerui's BWF World Ranking points is 101,644 ! She is the first WS to cross the 100,000 mark, a record.

 

Thanks Justin for a cool translation (in the 1st class English ) of the brief yet fascinating biography of the phenomenal superstar, Li Xuerui becoming the very first WS to break the 100,000 WR point is simply another testimony of her stardom.

Thanks too Devendra for bothering to take time to update Li Xuerui's wiki entry frankly I ain't a fan of wiki but many may find it useful.

 

Thanks,kelana, for your compliment. One small typo error - para.3 should be "...held in Spain..." - at first I thought it was referring to a place, so typed 'at', later I realized it referred to Spain but I was multi-tasking, got distracted and forgot to amend it.

Coming back to LXR, I love her brand of badminton and entertain very high hopes of her achieving true greatness which I believe she is destined to. Unconsciously, I become very demanding towards her, harsh ,impatient, even unrealistic to expect her to sweep all before her time after time, for I had already regarded her as the female version of Lin Dan.

So when she disappointed me not only once but twice at the WCs, playing far below her normal game due to nothing but her own nerves, her mental lapses to literally hand over the crown to her opponents who simply let themselves go with nothing to lose and nothing to fear whilst LXR just crumbled making one easy mistakes after another. I thought she not only failed to do justice to herself but also lowered the standard of a WC final by playing so badly - in other words, she fell short of restoring order to the badminton world in WS when the true world number one is once again not the world champion.

Whatever, perhaps I should know better by now to let nature take its course.

 

I see a bit of Zhao Jianhua in LXR. Like Zhao she will just play her strokes come what may. That's what make her games error prone. Zhao went one step further, always seeking to execute his strokes in style too, and when every thing went well not only the spectators but also the man on the other side of the net will be awe-struck. Joko Suprianto should be able to testify to this.

 

Noticeably, LXR had one of those brain-fades once a year for the past three years, viz. 2012 vs Saina Nehwal, 2013 vs Intanon Ratchanok, and this year vs Carolina Marin.

Also worthy of note is that in 2012 LXR produced a spectacular winning streak of 35 out of 36 matches with the one fateful meltdown to Saina at the INA Open PSS. That amazing run stands out in badminton history comparable to Novak Djokovic's 41-1 record in tennis achieved in 2011.

 

You do have a point, for the time being, LXR is more like the unpredictable,inconsistent,ingenious wizard Zhao Jianhua than the self-possessed,imperious,irrepressible Lin Dan.

However, I think there's a significant difference between LXR and Zhao JH. In LXR's case, what's hindering her is mostly a mental thing which only she herself can overcome and grow out of as nobody can do it for her. In the case of Zhao JH, he was unfortunate to be afflicted by pneumonia which impaired his lung capacity early on in his career at a young age of 20; in fact, the doctor had then ruled out competitive badminton for him but he was adamant to carry on and by sheer willpower and dogged determination coupled with his prodigious talents he developed his consummate,sublime skills that transcended that physical disadvantage or 'handicap' albeit not always.

For LXR, if I may be presumptuous, I make bold to suggest that she take up meditation (minus the religious trappings,beliefs,etc - up to her) as a form of mental training - eg, just close her eyes while seated in a quiet environment, turn her mind inwards, keep it still and devoid of all thoughts and concentrate on breathing in and breathing out to attain one-pointedness of mind. Hopefully,by cultivating a daily practice of meditation she is able to keep calm, stay focused, self-controlled and remain steady during matches at all times.

 

LXR is doing what her other Baiyi seniors and predecessors (eg, WX and LD) had done and has been doing.

Minimize your risk of injuries.

Take it easy against your own teammates.

Just win the Olympics.

 

Win the WC next year then go for another gold at Rio, nothing less for the next two years; after that , more to come. That will be Li Xuerui's foreseeable goals, unquestionably.

 

the more I think about it, the more I think LXR is just following the path of Wang Xin.

Make sure you win in team events (ie, Uber, Sudirman and Asian Games team).

Go easy in individual events, especially against your teammates.

Give it your 100% in the Olympics.

 

I am glad that LXR does not read or write English. Otherwise what we post here will put her under tremendous pressure. Actually I love to see her win the WC too but watching her play in WC finals is not good for my heart. Agree with U on the mental part of her game and meditation will definitely help. Time for her to engage a Shaolin master to help her.

 

Are you sure she does not read or write English? I'm surprised that many of young Chinese athletes can speak very good English, just they are quite shy to speak in public?

 

pcll99, you make a very good point... the OG gold is worth about $55000 in China, meaning that's how much the central govt gives the athlete. But there are other non cash rewards like endorsements, cars, apartments, fame, etc. which make OG gold an even more attractive goal.

 

All their post match interviews were conducted through a Chinese translator with the exceptions of tennis players because they train in US. I don't think they read the posts in this forum anyway.