Me too. It justifies her coach's selection of her to play the BAC together with Chen YF, He BJ and Han Yue. The drawback is that both Cai Yanyan and Han Yue are relatively inexperienced at age 19 and in only the second year of their pro career are still developing their game. I believe she, and HY as well, must have impressed the coaches during training though that hasn't translated into tournament results that measure up to their expectations yet.
I was disappointed with CYY at the Scottish Open Where she lost to K. Gilmore , I think. Prior to that I thought she had the best potential due to her possessing firepower that could make a difference. I think she has adopted new strategies that reduced her errors and gave her confidence which accounts for her victory over PS. Congratulations is due.
Except li/liu new combinations should be tried. I prefer huang kaixiang with liu cheng and he jiting with han chengkai
Any partnership with Liu Cheng is doomed to fail at this point, although maybe lower expectations could help him with nerves (if his atrocious error rate and bad decision-making is indeed due to nerves and not just lack of talent/intelligence)
IMHO Liu Cheng is not a " natural doubles " player. In fact I feel the men in the XD combination at The BAC Playing the Semi Finals are very good MDs material,i.e.. Zheng Siwei,Wang Yilyu and He Jiting. Similarly the women in that XD are also very good WD players,except less so in the case of Huang Yaqiong.
Its very frustrating watching HBJ play. She believes so much in her talent that she lost touch with the basics of length and cutting down on her errors. When she meets a consistent player with strong basics and stamina she commits too many silly mistakes. She's spoilt for talent.
Where do you get this, how do you know what she believes or thinks....or what she lost touch with...some players are more disciplined in their play than others, some are more of a work horse than others - doesn't automatically mean that any who don't work quite as hard on court are less dedicated or disciplined overall. Some of it is also down to genetics/physical talent, not everyone can be the most explosive/enduring/whatever physical quality it is one values. HBJ isn't the type of player to perfect the basics and being down opponents, so be it. There's enough of those. I for one hope that she can find her own style and not get pressed into a standard mold like so many forgettable Chinese singles players.
I certainly do not want her to be the robotic player that we see so often. But without those basics you cannot get out of trouble. K. Momota and S. Yuqi have great basics and yet have talent.
He Bingjiao looks set to be a wasted talent. I'm very much hoping for Cai Yanyan and Han Yue to overtake her as soon as possible and assume the mantle of CHN WS together with Chen Yufei. At the same time, I'm watching Chen Xiaoxin with the wish that she can do the same. As for Gao Fangjie, we'll have to wait until next year or earliest end of year when she comes back from her injury layoff to see if she too can join the ranks of elites.
It is sad to see still there are no signs of comeback from lin guipu. Tang jinhua is not seen in the action about a year now.
At the Barefoot and Thompson tournament today,Sun Feixiang played very well to beat Koki Watanabe in the 1st round qualification quite convincingly, 21-19 and 21-10. KW recently won the Osaka Tournament in the first week of April and took down Weng Hongyang and Ren Pengbo in straight sets. In the second round qualification he then beat P.Kashyap seeded 2 in two games, 21-16 and 21-18. Of the seeded players only Chong Wei Feng ( 3 )made it to the main draw. The top seed Ajay Jayaram lost to Lakshya Sen, and Gao Zhengze lost to CWF in 3 sets, not a bad performance. Surprisingly one can watch live matches in youtube badminton, court 1 and 2 .
Unexpectedly, Sun Feixiang won his match against Khosit Phetpradab, the 8th seed and world ranked 18. But noticeably, KP has been losing quite frequently. Still not a bad achievement for SF ranked 109 in the world. His game must have matured somewhat to beat three very good players all ranked very much higher than him.
Hmmm, someone in this forum said that this 17 years old Korean is the biggest talent in the world. If I should say, An Se-young is not to be taken lightly.
I was somewhat surprised too. Good job, Sun Feixiang. Way to go. Wang Zhiyi's victory over Saina is even more surprising es after she failed to wrap up G2 from 19-15 up and one game to the good, I thought she's done for in the decider. To her credit, she came back stronger in the third for a convincing win. But, still the least expected result is Li Yun booting out Jeon Jui, whom I thought is quite a good KOR WS except I didn't realise she's 24 years of age already. Apparently, most of these Chinese youngsters, the WS more than the MS, are young and at the early stage of their pro career, and what all of them lack most is experience, as well as good stamina in some cases. Nonetheless, it's heartening to see them one by one making progress step by step, notably Han Yue, then Cai Yanyan who beat Sung Ji Hyun and P V Sindhu, and now Wang Zhiyi taking out Saina. I'm equally concerned to see more CHN MS, the young crop, stepping up to the plate as soon as possible. As it is, Lu Guangzu has yet to show the requisite consistency and rise inside the top 10 to bolster the ranks of CHN MS. Zhao Junpeng and Zhou Zeqi have not made the cut so far; hopefully, Ren Pengbo and , maybe, Sun Feixiang(still too early to say) , can take up the mantle in good time. So far, for the time being, it seems the CHN WS seedlings are looking more promising than their male counterparts.
Yes, Wang Zhiyi's win was surprising. It may have been Saina's off day. She was making an awful lot of unforced errors. But credit to WZY as she played quite well. Her lengths to all parts of the court were very accurate which made it difficult for Saina. Her footwork reminds me of Chen Yufei. She has to get more firepower to trouble the better players. She will play Saena Kawakami so its a good test of her progress. As for the MS I don't think any of the present group including Lu Guangzu will be a force for the future. The coaches have to single out a few of the younger juniors for special attention. There is a need for the them to get the juniors to have more firepower and deceptive skills like the Indonesians used to in the old days. Its interesting that only Gao Zhengze and Sun Feixiang were selected for this tournament. I like GZZ and if only he can improve his stamina and strength he will be a very good prospect.
