As it stands, only one player has the realistic chance of beating Li Xuerui soundly that is Wang Yihan. She needs to figure out how to overcome the combination of Wang Xin's attack and Wang Shixian's deceptive slice drop displayed by Li Xuerui... The fate of the Wang Dynasty lies in her own hands..
Poor Juliane. Even though LXR is my favourite Chinese WS player, I had half wished for the hardworking German to have taken her first SS title .
It is amazing that CHN can introduce good WS into the market, last two year Wang Yi Han come from nowhere and just win 3-4 tournament in a row (and prior to that during Zhang Ning and Gong Ruina, Zhoume prime period, Xia Xin Fang just come from nowhere to win 5 tournament in a rows). And in between, CHN send another good Wangs and now LXR. Oh! The WS in CHN camp should have been in a very pressure atmostphere because if anyone just a little down, she can be replaced by any uprising star. We may see a different world champion from CHN each year in the next five years. What the WS CHN eat?
They did not come from nowhere. They stood out from fierce domestic competition which is by no means at a lower level than the rest of the world. Their fitness, speed, racket skills and most importantly footwork have been professionally trained and tuned since day one. What they need is experience and an opportunity to compete on the world stage. For many players from other countries, no matter how kind-hearted we are and how hard they work, even recreational players can identify some of their obvious weaknesses, which are very unlikely to be changed since they are more or less already fixed. Take Juliane Schenk for example, her overall body coordination is not that good nor is her footwork. The Chinese coaches are not magicians but they focus on fine tuning the very basic skills of players, which are the elements a player needs to reach the top. Peter Rasmussen, Lee Chong Wei, Lee Hyun-il and today Shon Wan-ho, these are good examples we have seen.
There is a LYB School of Badminton in Dongguan, just a few clicks from Shenzhen. This school is run by TXH.
So soldier Schenk struggled, again. I'm quite surprised by her mental weakness although working with a mental coach for some time now.
It was really interesting finals yesterday, particularly last two clashes, MS & MD, first ever SS title for the underdogs, Shon Wan-ho and Thai youngsters Bodin/Maneepong, very impressive performance. Congrats!
I never commented on the Md match as I was busy but giving the H2H I would not have been surprised about an upset... Maklike did post though that Thai pair would win
Nice thing about the finals: 5 different flags involved in the matches. And no one flag dominated. That in itself is worth a huge wolf whistle...
Shon Wan Ho played amazingly yesterday!!! Completely exceeded my expectations beating Lee Chong Wei Although LCW is much fitter, Wan Ho played strategically by taking on LCW at the net and forcing him to the back in many occasions when LCW is predicting the net kill. LCW was very passive in the final set, his speed was not there and many misjudgements costed him many points.
IMO badminton is not only about how the player can attack , in high level its more to mentality strength , beside Susi had great stamina too.
I think we need to give some credit to LCW for staying in the match in the 3rd game. He was trailing 13-18 to Shon Wan Ho and came back strongly to make the game much more interesting in the end. That is still very hard to do when Shon Wan Ho is playing in the form of his life. So not a very bad performance from LCW if you ask me. The media shouldn't be reading too much out of this loss.
