I think PBSI must follow Djarum's strategy, by sending their young players to small tournaments, so as the players were used to it with the atmosphere of the match, and increasing their skills gradually. E.g Maria Elfira, her level and ranking continued to rise at this time, in fact being seen from the side of the game, certainly better Pia Zebadiah.
Finally, able to log in to BC in China, after several days of inactivity...hehe Good to see Djarum reps excelling yet again in progressing to 4 out of 5 Finals. Only Andre Kurniawan Tedjono and Fran Kurniawan/Shendy Puspa Irawati losing in very close scores to Chetan Anand and Wouter Claes/Nathalie Descamps :crying: However, Rendra Wijaya/Meiliana Jauhari ensure that Djarum has 1 rep in the XD Final. It should be an interesting match. Excellent result for Fran Kurniawan/Rendra Wijaya in beating Simon Mollyhus/Anders Kristiansen. They will face their arch-rival, Adam Cwalina/Wojciech Szkudlarczyk in the Final. Remember, they lost to the Polish no 2 pair in the first round of Polish Open. Meiliana Jauhari/Shendy Puspa Irawati should have no problem in winning yet another title today, with their opponent being Jillie Cooper/Nathalie Descamps. Finally, Maria Elfira Christina continues her fine form as she beat Jill Pittard in the SF and will face an Indian gal Neha Pandit in the Final today. It will be excellent if she can win her first title in Madrid.
Oops, I misreported... So 1 INA XD in the finals... A chance to get 4 titles for INA but none is assured...
Yeah man, this should be very interesting... Fran-Rendra's coach said that this Polish pair has the technical ability of Wifqi-Alfiat [not as good as Fran-Rendra] but they are extremely confident of themselves... [at least, while in Poland]...
Congratulations to the Djarum team for the roaring success in the just concluded Spanish Open...the only disappointment is Andre...
I personally hope Hayom can do better. He is such a potential talent... but so far, no big wins... Anyway, 4 titles for INA is good news for a country who needs some good news lately...
Definitely another solid performance from Team Djarum in the Spanish Open 2008. Unlike Team Pelatnas, Djarum definitely has a knack of winning titles in Europe A near clean sweep this time with 4 titles, much improved than the results in Polish and Finnish International Challenge 2008 (1 and 2 titles respectively). So, Fran Kurniawan/Rendra Wijaya have won 3 titles this year, Meiliana Jauhari/Shendy Puspa Irawati have also won 2 titles. All the 4 players have also each won the XD title. Even Maria Elfira Christina also wins 1 title this week. What a result for her! We now need a result from Andre Kurniawan Tedjono.
It's time to build up their rankings first before sending them to any SS events outside of INA. At the moment, they should make the main draw of the Djarum Indonesia SS.
WoW, INA's Djarum club big win from Spanish Open! 4 titles and double joy for Meiliana and Rendra. Next stop, let's see in Toulouse...
Did INA players win all the 4 finals? What were the scores? It's so sad Andre lost in the semi..hope he can fight back and win in Toulouse..finger crossed..
Wonder why Djarum opts to send their players to tournaments far away from INA e.g Spain and France? Why not somewhere nearby, like those in Asia? Why don't they send their players into a tournament in which Pelatnas players are also competing? That way, the chances of their clashes are very high, and people can see, which ones are better.
10:00 AM XDRendra Wijaya[INA] Meiliana Jauhari[INA] -[BEL] Wouter Claes [1][BEL] Nathalie Descamps21-14 21-18 0:25 10:45 AM WSMaria Elfira Christina [6][INA] -[IND] Neha Pandit21-16 21-4 0:26 11:30 AM MSChetan Anand [5][IND] -[SWE] Henri Hurskainen23-21 19-21 21-15 0:50 12:15 PM WDShendy Puspa Irawati [1][INA] Meiliana Jauhari[INA] -[SCO] Jillie Cooper[BEL] Nathalie Descamps21-10 21-10 0:30 1:00 PM MDFran Kurniawan[INA] Rendra Wijaya[INA] -[POL] Adam Cwalina[POL] Wojciech Szkudlarczyk21-11 21-13 0:24
I would argue that their strategy of sending players to the European Challenger tourneys is better than Pelatnas. In sending those players to Europe, they will have higher chances of winning the titles, as we have seen in the past 2 mths. Fran/Rendra and Mel/Shendy will rise up to the top 25 by end of this year. That's for sure. Compared to Pelatnas's strategy of only sending the young players to Asian Challenger, GP, and GP Gold events where the chance of getting a title is pretty remote considering the strength of Korean, Malaysian and Singaporean players. No wonder Pelatnas's players rankings' could not improve further. Look at Bona Septano/Mohd Ahsan. They have now declined from the top 35 to 52. Look at Hendra A.G./Joko Riyadi...except for the Jakarta Open title they won 2 years ago, they won nothing at all. Fran/Rendra already won 2 Int Challenger events and their confidence would have been boosted further.
That's exactly my point. Why do they have higher chance to win titles in European tourneys? Partly (and mainly) because there are only a few European shuttlers able to match them. Consider they compete in Asian tournaments in which Korean, Malaysian, and Singaporean (plus Thai and Japanese) shuttlers, themselves as you say, pretty strong, are playing as well. Are they still up to it?
