XD semis: Zuev Nikolaj/Marina Yakusheva (Rus) vs Lee Yong Dae/Kang Hae Won (Kor) Siegemund Bjoern/Pitro Nicol (Ger) vs Xie Zhongbo/Yu Yang (Chn)
WD semis: Kamil Augustyn/Nadiezda Kostiuczyk (Pol) vs Feng Chen/Pan Pan (Chn) Ha Jung Eun/Oh Seul Ki (Kor) vs Du Jing/Yu Yang (Chn) (Du/Yu bt Wong Pey Ti/Chin Eei Hui 15-17, 15-10, 15-2)
Yeah, it's Malaysia vs Denmark battle! Hopefully, Gan/Koo could outplay the back-up Danish pair, as they are in better position to qualify for Athens compared to Chan/Chew.
all 3 young chn (Liu Jian, Chen Lanting, Zhu Lin) made it to the WS semis, the last spot being Pi Hongyan...
MS SEMI: CHEN Jin(CHN) vs ROCH Jens (GER) JOPPIEN Bjoern (GER) vs YAMADA Hidetaka (JPN) JOPPIEN Bjoern (GER) beat MAINAKY Marleve 15-7/15-9 in Quaters I think No one has the ability to prevent ChenJin from becoming the champion in this Open.
impressive performance by the chn youngster.. in the XD, the final is btw Chn pair of Xie Zhongbo/Yu Yang vs Russian Zuev Nikolaj/Marina Yakusheva... in the WD, its all chn fnal btw Du Jing/Yang Yu and Feng Chen/Pan Pan
Did Misburn say they need to win the French Open before letting them to go to the Olympics? I was wondering because if they have a good draw and win the 1st round of the Korean Open and Japan Open, they still have an excellent chance of gaining enough ranking points to qualify for Athens.
I also hope Chen Jin could win. Probably in terms of skills he is the best one. But let's not forget in tournaments experience is also very important. JOPPIEN Bjoern is a very experienced player and not easy to deal with in tournaments.
Chan/ Chew have kissed goodbye thier chances to play in other tournaments before the Olympics. Yap Kim Hock had said he won't send them unless they are crowned in French. Wonder what it takes to get them back to their formidable play again. Sigh.. Gan/ Koo are the newly crowned national champs in Malaysia, they are young and fast. I think they will win!
I have seen Gan/Koo play recently, very impressive. They dragged the top English pair all over and would have won if they had more luck and experience. They are something like Cai/Fu, not as fast and explosive but slightly more powerful and accurate. I hope they will avenge Choong/Lee/Chan/Chew in the finals...Justice, we need you now....hahaha
I hope Chen Jin wins as well. I got excited about him after his ownage of Park Sung Hwan at World Juniors gold medal game but he never made a big impact in a few tries at China Open and at the Copenhagen Masters (he did beat Sony Kuncorro though!!). Hopefully, the French Open will be his first major step into world dominance! In WS, Pi looks set to win gold again on home ground, as she has much more exp than the youngster Chen Lanting. Of course, go Malaysians in MD!!!
No worries, wl2172! Justice is always around for those who works hard enough. That would be nice to also have Lady Luck with us sometimes though. Let's hope Gan/Koo win in style today. That will give the Malaysian camp a timely booster! Yap would be happy to see his young proteges doing well. Hope this pair is cool and steady and come up real fast. We need them to do some big kills in TC and the Olympics. Go, Ah Chai and Ah Keat! Sounds like all the "Chens" can really play badminton. Is Chen Jin in anyway related to Chen Hong, Chen Yu...etc?
Pi Hongyan took the WS title... Chen is one of the 10 most common surnames in Chn which make up 40% of the total population (the othrs being Zhang, Wang, Li, Zhao, Yang, Wu, Liu, Huang and Zhou) so it isnt surprising seeing so many Chens, Zhangs or Lis in the team...
