If I am not mistaken, it should be Jennifer Lee. A very good win for Michelle Li. Saw her play at this years HK Open and I didn't think it was as strong as previously.
The first 5 matches lasted only 182 minutes (about 3 hours) or merely 36.4 min. per match. Strangely no rubber games, less competitive than what is expected in a semi-finals. As I write, the time is only 5.45 pm and the first session has ended about 15 min earlier. The next session will start at 7 pm. If the matches are also straight games, then the night should not last later than 10.30 pm, a vast improvement over yesterday despite the long interval.
One tennis match can last 5 hours and tennis fans are not complaining. But badminton fans feel 8 hours for 10 matches are too long. No wonder BWF wants to shorten some more. But I think longer match if interesting, is ok.
What did I see ?! Michelle Li did it again, this time sweeping aside YipPY; she is on a roll and might just win the final tomorrow. Also found out from BWF biodata she was born 11/3/1991, place of birth Hong Kong before she became a Canadian. Tian Houwei, oh dear, well..., Hsueh Hsuan Yi certainly made his experience count at age 28 if BWF's biodata is correct, born 10/26/1985. MAS MD Hoon/Tan didn't disappoint to enter the final. The KOR's prowess in doubles showed again, their XD Sol/Yoo thumped the CHN WJC'13 pair Huang/Chen. There's another KOR vs CHN XD matchup later, let's see if it'll be any different.
I hope Tian Houwei positively learns from his defeats, to Hsueh Hsuan Yi today and before that to Lee HI and Chong Wei Feng of late. Of course, I won't expect him to take the three successive failures too hard, negatively.
So it has gone past 10.30 pm now. Thanks to the ongoing splendid WS battle between Sindhu and newcomer Qin JinJing. I thought it will be over in straight games when Sindhu took a commanding G1 21-13 and leading G2 all the way till Qin caught up at 16-all and finally took it 21-18. Now its neck-to-neck before Qin led by a slim one point at the interval, 11-10. Again the proceedings will be extended and keep fans longer in the stadium,
[TABLE="class: ruler matches"] [TR="bgcolor: transparent"] [TD="align: right"][TABLE] [TR="bgcolor: transparent"] [TD="align: right"]Sindhu P. V. [1][/TD] [TD][/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [/TD] [TD="align: center"]-[/TD] [TD][TABLE] [TR="bgcolor: transparent"] [TD][/TD] [TD]Qin Jinjing[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [/TD] [TD]21-13 18-21 21-19[/TD] [TD][/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] What a match it is...!!! Qin Jinjing is a very good player i guess. I thought the match will end in straight games.. But QinJinJing played really well to push sindhu to limits.. Sindhu booked finals to meet Li Michelle of canada in the finals.. This semifinal match was the longest match of the day.. 1.08 hours.. We can expect more of this chinese girl hereafter. She is slightly younger than Sindhu (10 months younger) . Her court coverage is excellent for her height. I have watched one of her match.
PV Sindhu prevented a shocker.... won 21-19 ... I am looking forward to her final match tomorrow against li michelle
Qin refused to give up and caught up at 19-all. But the more experienced and No.1 seed Sindhu threw the last blow 21-19 to end unseeded Qin's aspirations. However, we should see more of Qin provided LYB still gives her the opportunities. So Sindhu escaped an embarrassing defeat by the freshie Qin. But will Michelle be able to provide a shocker tomorrow?
It's Semifinals day and yet neither livstreams nor live TV telecast available for a GPG event, how disappointing and annoying. A bit surprised that Lu Kai/Huang Yaqiong prevented an all-KOR XD final. Even more unexpected for me was Qin Jinjing coming so close to upsetting the top seed Sindhu. Well, with Michelle Li apparently choosing this tournament to make her breakthrough, I'm not so sure Sindhu is the favourite in the final; a bit hard to predict, maybe 50-50.
Michelle reached the SF in WD with Alex Bruce, in 2012 Olympics, lost in the bronze medal playoff to Russians.
Well despite today's earlier start at 2 pm instead of 3 pm for the QF, the last MD match, which is still in progress, will probably end past 11.30 pm. The hour-long dinner interval this evening contributed mainly to the delay even though, unlike yesterday when there were eight 3-gamers, there were only three today. But still better than past mid-night!
Alas, in the end, the 2013 WJC MD Li JH/Liu YC lost narrowly to the top seed despite leading most of the way in G3.
tomorrow battle of top 2 seeds in MD final TPE vs MAS, too bad there is no live telecast and livestream for finals...
