Chinese Badminton

Discussion in 'China Professional Players' started by Justin L, Aug 31, 2013.

  1. Cheung

    Cheung Moderator

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    To be honest, from the 1980's, who were the really good men's singles players? Zhao Jian Hua, Yang Yang, Sun Jun and then Lin Dan.

    In the 2000's, MS did get stronger as did the whole team. Why? Because of Li Yong Bo? Indirectly yes because he brought Tang Xin Hu
    into the coaching staff.

    I don't think it is a coincidence that this present generation have not been under Tang.

    That lacking part is the retirement of Tang from the national coaching setup. Surely not just a coincidence....?
     
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  2. Anand S

    Anand S Regular Member

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    I think Tang Xianhu (Or lack thereof) may have something to do with it. China MS and WS went WAY up when he was around. Before that, Indonesia experienced a similar phenomenon when he was around in the 90's. I remember talking to Ardy Wiranata, and the first thing he talked about in regards to Tang was how hard he physically pushed them, while still putting the proper focus on technical skills, it was just really intense, high quality practice. I don't feel that the current players are going through such quality of practice, and are consequently lagging behind
     
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  3. antssantss

    antssantss Regular Member

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    Bin Qiao beaten by a Malaysian teenager!! Proof of the pudding that Chinas MS is a clear failure. I dont think they need Tang Sien Hu to help. Imho thats going backwards. Malaysia, Japan and France all have new coaches and yet they have produced emerging players. So what China needs is someone who can impart their style like Zhao Jianhua or Sun Jun. XX should take a backseat as his methods have been a consistent failure for China. Come on CBA bring on the new exciting juniors onto the stage.
    .
     
  4. Justin L

    Justin L Regular Member

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    Tang Xianhu is old, age 75 now, and not in the best of health now, heart disease from what I've gathered (and underwent heart surgery, if I'm not wrong, some years back). He can't take the rigours of frequent travelling and certainly the demands of long hours of personal coaching except to give pointers and general advice and just overseeing the process instead of actually training the players. Li Yongbo held him in the highest esteem and is kind enough to give him a high-ranking position in his badminton academy at Dongguan.

    Yes, it's very concerning the current state of CHN MS, with Lin dan aging, Chen Long out of form, and Shi Yuqi not quite ready to take over the mantle. Indeed, CBA needs to inject new blood without further delay. Glad to note that in the upcoming Macau Open GPG, several young hopefuls who showed promise in the CNG and the CBSL earlier will be given the exposure, including a number from the junior squad, viz., Lu Guangzu, Sun Feixiang, Zhou Zeqi, Zhao Junpeng, Ren Pengbo, Zhang Yiman, Cai Yanyan, Han Yue, and some doubles pairs.

    I hope it doesn't stop there, as they really need much international exposure to grow and develop their game and gain experience. Letting them play in the occasional tournament or just once in a blue moon is grossly inadequate, even defeats the purpose, for very few can do well in the first couple of attempts.

    Many of them will also be featured the week after when CBA hosts the China Open PSS. A bit of a surprise and disappointment to me though is the absence of Hui Xirui in both the Macau and China Open as I remember her capturing a GP title lately, and she is still only 23 years old. Likewise, no Xue Song, Lin Guipu but not surprisingly, Sun Yu, as she is undergoing therapy for her injury and rehabilitation and is expected to be back next year when the new season begins.
     
  5. antssantss

    antssantss Regular Member

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    Thank you Justin for the information on the juniors. I had hope for the 17 and 18 year olds to also feature in the forthcoming tournaments to enrich their experience. I refer to the participants in the recent WJC as well as Guo Xinwa.
     
  6. Justin L

    Justin L Regular Member

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    I fully agree that more junior players should be sent to international tournaments where the real challenge and motivation exist to spur them on, rather than mostly domestic competitions where the stakes and motivation to excel aren't as high. There are so many Int'l Challenge and Int'l Series tournaments available as well as a few GP level events that are often not well attended, why not make full use of them as a real challenge or training ground to test their mettle, for nothing beats the excitement, joy and satisfaction of the opportunity to go overseas and pit their skills with the best peers in the world.

    For sure, the encouragement, the motivation, the gamut of emotions - pride and sorrow, elation and disappointment - they go through as reflected in the results after repeated attempts will help to separate the wheat from the chaff, enabling the truly promising and outstanding ones to emerge and be identified early on in their youth, better than any domestic provincial level tournaments could do,I believe.

    Well, which sounds better, more gratifying and carries more weight - a particular Grand Prix or Int'l Challenge or Int'l Series champion OR a certain province or city champion ? The answer is a no-brainer.
     
  7. antssantss

    antssantss Regular Member

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    Is there someone close to the CBA who can shed some light on the apparent lack of foresight on the part of the CBA in this matter. Why are they not seeing the benefit of the juniors playing away from home. Please don't say that the juniors have enough home grown talent to test their skills. That's incestuous in a manner of speaking.
    It cant be financial reasons, surely.
     
  8. RC47

    RC47 Regular Member

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    I strongly feel that it's stubbornness on CBA's part, rather than lack of foresight. You don't really need to be a genius to see the benefit of long-term planning and growth, and the best example is Japan. Park Joo Bong became Japan's head coach back in 2004, and while Japan has usually had 1-2 decently strong pairs in each category, they never dominated any event (correct me if I'm wrong). Fast forward 10 years and we are beginning to see the positive effects he's made. New and competitive players/pairs are emerging continuously (especially in women's doubles/singles) and show no sign of stopping, and the current player's forms are improving (might even explain Sho Sasaki's late rise in form before he retired).

    I really doubt it's financial reasons since CBA is always trying to host the major events (Sudirman, Uber/Thomas, Asian, etc). Unless hosting tournaments is more important to them than player growth :p.
     
  9. Anand S

    Anand S Regular Member

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    At least in the doubles, China had world class players like Bao Yixin and Tang Yuanting, but they left for some odd reason (I think it was to finish their education, perhaps someone can clarify), but I think the players do not see badminton as a long term career path anymore, and arent dedicating themselves as much as players in the past. I believe this is why the standard has lowered significantly. It's not an age thing for sure, because Chinese players have always showed top level play from their teen years onwards, but now even the 24 year olds can't hold a candle to the top players. I believe the main problem is that the long-term dedication is not there anymore (You get better a lot faster when you know that you are going to dedicate your life to something versus if you are uncertain about the future)
     
  10. Yoji

    Yoji Regular Member

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    But then again, Dont you make more money now than in the past (like GaoLing/ZhangJun era) even the early 2010s inflation wise?

    Even finishing in Final/SF should make them happy being a NationalTeam player. Like BaoYixin/TangYuanting. Seriously what a waste of talent?

    Will they do the same mistakes to CQC by breaking her up with ZSW? it was then Bao/TangJinHua is ruling the world when they lost the WC2014 in the first round. lack of foresight?
     
  11. antssantss

    antssantss Regular Member

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    I have been a fan of Zhao Junpeng because of his lovely footwork and style. He will be a very good player if he can stop making silly unforced errors and also build his game on more power, and anticipation. He has a very good smash, so if he can build up his stamina and confidence he will be an exciting prospect.
    I think his biggest problem is confidence. He has good defence so he shouldnt be afraid of the opponents smashes and over hit his baseline shots. Thats what I mean by confidence.
     
  12. antssantss

    antssantss Regular Member

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    Ren Pengbo managed to beat the very tricky Wei Nan after losing the first set, in the first round yesterday.That's impressive. In the second round he overcame a much higher ranked Guo Kai. It was refreshing that R. Pengbo doesnt play in the usual defensive style of many of the juniors. He uses his attacking prowess very well to score points. He also has very good anticipation and is very quick , taking the shuttle very early. It took him one set to adjust to the shuttle and drift, making very many unforced errors.
    He has to cut the errors down in his next match against Vincent Wong Ki Wing. It will be interesting to see how he fares against the second seed. Cant say very much abut Sun Feixiang who lost easily to Kanta Tsuneyama. I am afraid he is not a prospect for the future.
     
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  13. antssantss

    antssantss Regular Member

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    Interesting, China juniors are taking part in the Yonex Korea Junior Championships on the 13th of November. Also 5 players are entered for The Scottish Open Grand Prix on the 22nd of November. Included is Liu Haicho a 19 year old Junior, who took part in the 2016 WJC.
    However both Zao Zhengze and Gu Junfeng are not entered for any tournaments. They performed well in the WJC recently. I hope they are not injured?
     
  14. Justin L

    Justin L Regular Member

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    Perhaps Gao Zhengze, Gu Junfeng and Bai Yupeng , all disappointed their coaches at the WJC'17 and were instructed to undergo further training before being sent to tournaments.

    Yeah, almost forgot there's Liu Haichao who, if I remember correctly, is from Sun Feixiang's batch.
     
  15. antssantss

    antssantss Regular Member

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  16. Justin L

    Justin L Regular Member

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    The problem with almost all of CHN's second tier younger players is they generally lack sufficient experience, often susceptible to deceptive players. It's the result, I believe, of playing in too few international tournaments, not enough exposure. Most of their foreign peers and those a bit older have been through many hard knocks and they learn from repeated failures as they grow and develop their game.

    Just look at today's Zhang Yiman vs Pai Yu Po semifinal match at the Macau Open, ZYM's experience told despite her persistence and tenacious defense, she was often caught by PYP's deceptive shots, eg overhead sliced drop shots and net play, as well as better anticipation.

    Nevertheless, Zhang Yiman acquitted herself well against Aya Ohori the day before, coming from behind to take the decider, but today her vulnerabilities were exploited by the mature, experienced, deceptive 26-year-old Pai Yu Po. It's obvious ZYNM was not able to read PYP's game and had to work very hard for her points as her more established opponent was dictating most of the rallies.

    Still, I've to admit Zhang Yiman looks promising and has the potential to go far one day, she is the best among the four CHN WS competing at the Macau Open GPG'17. Cai Yanyan who will be turning 18 in a few days' time, born 15th Nov 1997, is also promising but somewhat raw and prone to errors, I think Gao Fangjie is a little better. As for Li Wenmei who plays both doubles at the WJC and singles at the Macau Open, I reserve my comment.

    On the whole, the CHN juniors and young cohort are sorely lacking in international exposure and experience compared to their foreign peers.
     
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  17. antssantss

    antssantss Regular Member

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    I am very impressed with Cai Yanyan and Zhang Yiman. Both have a good attacking game as well as good strokes. They show a very calm attitude against much better players. If they can improve their stamina therefore their speed to the shuttle, they can hold their shots thereby wrong footing their opponents. They still have a long way to go but they are certainly the best of the juniors in China, imho.
     
  18. Justin L

    Justin L Regular Member

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    http://sports.qq.com/a/20171111/014114.htm

    CBA Doubles head Coach, Zhang Jun, has just announced that for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic cycle, 80% of their doubles players will no longer do double duty. Indeed, following the new BWF tournament structure and the decline of Chinese badminton, such a move is better able to ensure results but it also means, in the near future, it will be extremely hard to see such outstanding double-duty players as Ge Fei, Gao Ling, and Zhao Yunlei emerging.

    Chen Qingchen will play only Women's Doubles with Jia Yifan and Zhang Nan will concentrate on Men's Doubles.

    Part of the reasons given is that, one, the rest of the world has caught up with China, and, two, the new BWF Tournament structure beginning 2018 does not have qualification rounds for the Grade 2 Levels 1,2 and 3 events which means that new(er) pairings with low ranking won't be able to take part. Besides, he felt that doing double duty makes it hard for them to maintain their fitness and stamina to perform well in two disciplines.

    Another article reports basically the same thing http://sports.qq.com/a/20171110/039436.htm whee Zhang Jun stated that no one will play two disciplines at the Olympics, that's his bottom line. He added, however, for the normal tournaments, just to regain the form, it may be acceptable sometimes.

    For XD, Zhang Jun is placing hopes on Zhen Siwei/Huang Yaqiong's partnership which means HYQ will gradually ease out of WD to fully concentrate on XD.

    As for Lu Kai/Tang Jinhua pairing, ZJ said it's not permanent, he will look for a younger partner for Lu Kai. The MD partnerships of Li Junhui/Liu Yuchen and Zhang Nan/Liu Cheng will be firm as they are quite stable.

    Zhang Jun further said:" Under normal circumstances, for the national first team, there will be six doubles pairs in each doubles discipline, the first three pairs form the core, the latter three pairs are to constantly snap at the heels of the former, and those who won the national championships can also target them, so as to create a sense of crisis for the core teams."

    As for the rest, the doubles coaching team is looking into reshuffling them, particularly the younger cohort.

    In the wake of the numerous veteran players retiring after the Rio Olympics, the performance of Team China at the beginning of the new cycle has not been up to expectations. Both Xia Xuanze and Zhang Jun frankly acknowledged that though China has a large base of badminton players but those at the professional level is rather limited.

    " Although CHN WS Chen Yufei and He Bingjiao at the recent Denmark and French Opens advanced to the semifinals but CHN WS as a whole is relatively weak, some of the players cannot even qualify for the level 3 and 4 events, let alone the level 1 and 2 tournaments." Xia Xuanze admitted grudgingly," At the moment, the national talent base is quite small, hope we can unearth even more talents."

    Xia Xuanze also revealed, Li Xuerui who was injured a year ago at the Rio Olympics is still actively training hard to make a comeback, but when playing a full match of 20-30 minutes, her knee joint will have a reaction. During the time of Li Xuerui, Wang Yihan and Wang Shixian, CHN WS was once dominant, but right now in the words of Xia Xuanze, " the task of WS is very difficult."

    As for MS, XXZ touched on Chen Long's poor performance post-ROG'16 hitting rock bottom,but showed signs of improvement at the French Open, and may regain his form; and on Lin Dan, he said for him to compete continuously is a serious test of his rate of recovery. Regarding Shi Yuqi and other young MS, a few display a certain degree of stability to enter the semifinals of tournaments, but they have apparently reached a bottleneck in their progress and get easily distracted during matches, this requires the coaching team to help them adjust their mentality.
     
    #1358 Justin L, Nov 12, 2017
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2017
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  19. Justin L

    Justin L Regular Member

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    Cai Yanyan not only made me eat back my words but also caused my head to roll for saying yesterday that I'd stick my neck out to predict she'd lose to Pai Yu Po today at the Macau Open GPG'17 WS final.

    First, heartiest congratulations to Cai Yanyan for a well-deserved, hard-fought victory to clinch her maiden GPG title. Her success at Macau more than compensated for her disappointment at the WJC last month where she lost to the eventual champion, INA's Gregoria Mariska, in the semifinal but against whom she avenged that defeat in the opening round at Macau and then went on to capture the title, beating en route others like Haruko Suzuki, Lee Min Ji (who conquered Saena Kawakami, the 3rd seed), WR19 and No.2 seed, Cheung Ngan Yi before overcoming Pai Yu Po who came from the semifinals of the Bitburger Open GPG the previous week and here entered the final.

    Second, I must admit I wasn't too impressed with CYY initially as at the WJC and the early rounds, she appeared error-prone and given to making amateurish mistakes; however, from the QFs onward at Macau, I'm happy to say she managed to cut down on those simple errors.

    Third, unlike Zhang Yiman who was disposed of by Pai Yu Po in the semis for whom the latter with her deceptive overhead shots and cross-nets as well as down-the-line and x-court smashes often stumped ZYM, but, to my pleasant surprise, Cai Yanyan was less susceptible to them and was able to return many of PYP's smashes, x-nets, drop-shots to turn the tables now and then on her more established opponent. Perhaps, CYY has the benefit of watching how ZYM fell to PYP's deceptive strokes.

    However, I'd like to say that CYY could be a smart, thinking player to a good enough degree despite her current age of 17, three days shy of her 18th birthday, born on 15th November 1999. Realistically, it's premature to say how good she will be in the near future but I'm convinced of her potential to become a rising star one day as GC herself commentated on her.

    Shameful to say, the young CHN WS cohort , 3 out of the 4 who came from the World Junior event, namely, Han Yue, Cai Yanyan, and Li Wenmei, actually acquitted themselves remarkably better than their male counterparts, Qiao Bin, Huang Yuxiang, Guo Kai, Zhao Junpeng, and Sun Feixiang. Even the 20-year-old WS Zhang Yiman performed commendably beating the top seed, Aya Ohori, before going down to in-form Pai Yu Po in the semifinals to a well-played three-setter.

    I look forward to seeing a few more young promising CHN WS emerging to reinforce the current crop of slightly older players like the 20-yr-old He Bingjiao, 19-yr-old Chen Yufei and 18-yr-old Chen Xiaoxin, not to mention the now 23-yr-old Sun Yu, to accomplish the mission of lifting CHN WS badminton to her rightful place on the global stage where she once occupied for more than a decade.

    Keep it up, Zhang Yiman, Cai Yanyan, Han Yue, and Li Wenmei and join the four aforementioned CHN WS to make waves soon. Jiayou, Team China !
    [​IMG]
    Cai Yanyan
     
    #1359 Justin L, Nov 12, 2017
    Last edited: Nov 12, 2017
  20. antssantss

    antssantss Regular Member

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    Congratulations to CYY for winning the Macau Open. Well done. But to be fair she was helped by the numerous unforced errors from Pai YP. Up against the top 5 WS she would have a tough time. She needs to add more speed, strength and power to be able to stretch the top players to make weak shots. I was more impressed with Z Yimans victory over the confident Aya Ohori.Its not an easy victory against the fast and aggressive Japanese player. So I was surprised she lost to Pai YP. She made too many simple mistakes and couldnt pressure Pai YP which CYY was able to do, returning her strong smashes.

    We must not forget to give Zhang Jun a lot of credit pairing Z Siwei With Huang Yaqiong. They played so well that one wouldnt have thought this was their first outing as a pair.It just goes to show that he is a very good coach. Also, I think his decision to stop double duty is good as China has a large number of players to choose and it also stops feelings of favouritism. Other decisions he is making shows what an observant person he is. One, Lu Kai needs a younger partner. Very true. Two, he will make more changes to the younger doubles pairings. Clever changes, improvements, strategising and thinking all the time; are very good signs of a coach who knows his responsiblities.

    On the Junior WS, for CYY to display a clear improvement in her game compared to her weak performance at the WJC in such a short time means that Zhang Ning and her team is doing the right things as well.
    Compare this with the MS. The Chief coach recognises the weaknesses in his players but what is being done? There is talent as in WJC Sun Feixiang and other juniors who played in the WJC. How can he bring these young players to the top level? I am afraid he doesnt have a clue. IMHO I am going to say that Zhang Jun would be able to come up with something if the job was given to him!!
     

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