Chan Peng Soon in AllEngland doesnt even get past the net and get faulted gifting LuKai/HYQ the victory. Without that victory, dont think they will be that good. That is the shot in the arms.
Zheng Siwei has had trouble introducing variation into his play for ages compared to Watanabe & Dechapol-- I guess if you are going to play short guys in XD, then play REALLY short and agile guys... Zheng Siwei frequently resorts to brute force and speed as if he is Fu Haifeng, but then is unable to make or control the deceptive/ creative shots when he needs to... But credit really goes to the JPN coaches for completely video-analysing and dismantling Zheng Siwei/ Cheng Qingcheng's play-style: with 2 short players like Higashino and Watanabe, the only way to play is for 1 player to fully commit to a shot; while the other player fully covers the rest of the court... and you can't really do that successfully unless you can (or already) fully anticipate how your opponents are going to play. Of course, as a matter of executing the JP'N coaches' plan, the trust and co-ordination between Higashino and Watanabe is amazing to behold... they are always calming each other down and reminding each other to get back to the plan (instead of trying to fire each other up).
Dude. Calm down. I wonder why you are so tense ! I saw it. We have to give it to Japanese. They played really well. We have to accept it. Both japanese players were better players than their opponents today on court.
I am not doubting that. The thing I have been saying right from the start is that this choice should never have been made. They already lost to a no body HK pair just few days back.
Give it to that HK pair. Chinese pair is not unbeatable according to me. Their videos are there to be analysed. And the opponent coaches will come up to beat them.
Classic Lin Dan : You smash Lin Dan, He dives and saves, force you to hit a half court shot then Lin Dan kills with a crosscourt smash.
Lin Dan playing lots of rallies, a slow-pace game, trying to drain his young opponent's energy before stepping it up ?
And all sorts of Chinese trickery-- he is playing super slow to give Cheng Qingcheng time to recover for her WD... No MS demonstration match to see here.
Again man. Of course they are being beaten but that is also in some part due to loss of form. My issue was that everybody knew that.