Marc's reaction: Tomorrow's opponent is.... China again! Let's hope for a miracle! #stupiddraw #nevergiveup Unfortunate for Germany. Good draw for China as INA probably the least threatening of the other three seeds (two easy points in singles).
Nightmare comes true for the GER The real battle will occur in the lower half. JPN will expect MAS to take out the KOR. Yet if KOR win by tomorrow, I guess they will make it into the final.
I see ALL the QF matches will indeed be interesting with yet open ending outcomes (some kind of upset may still happen) except the unlucky panzer team.
JPN must still beware with this undrdog Danes 2nd tier I rate this tie as 50 :50 or 52:48 still tightly to japan JPN sure have advantage in WS and WD but that's all MS slightly toward DEN MD 50:50 XD the Danes scratch pair possibly bring surprise to not too solid Japan XD
I don't see Germany doing any better than they did in the group matches against China. Indonesia should prevail over Chinese Taipei, on paper they should win MS, MD, WD, XD, and lose WS. Malaysia rematch against Korea will be interesting. In the group match Korea loss from losing MD in a very close match. how will it pan out here? However, I do believe the most interesting is Japan vs. Denmark. very 50/50.
No fun for the four teams to face each other again in the QFs but is there a better system? I think TPE and INA can go either way, most likely by 3-2. I expect TPE to take WS (TTY) and MS(CTC), and only need to win(upset) one of the doubles. MAS vs KOR, expect KOR to be better prepared this time with MS the only sure point for MAS (LCW), and fighting chances for the rest but the edge goes to KOR. JPN less uncertainty as I expect them to prevail over the much weakened DEN team in the absence of the 'Kjeldsens' players; nonetheless, no whitewash.
another way, but may not be the better way is to do away with the groups and adopt the knock-out system like any other tournaments. then you wouldn't play the same team twice and the 'lesser teams' has a chance to play the seeded teams. never quite understand that why team tournament has to play in groups. the old Thomas Cup is another extreme that the champion just up there waiting for the rest to fight and win the chance to challenge the holder.
The knock-out or elimination system may produce freak results with some of the top few seeds exiting in the early rounds, that's why the group format was introduced. Perhaps BWF can further tweak the system to prevent any two teams meeting again in the QFs, again it has its own set of problems but weighing the pros and cons, it might be the lesser evil, so to speak. The old extreme arrangement of the defending Champion just waiting for the Challenger to emerge without having to fight the rest of the candidates is exactly what is happening to the World Chess Championship most of the time with brief exceptions. In that case we have to allow the Challenger who emerged from the candidates tournament to have a short but sufficient period of rest before the ultimate face-off with the defending Champion. Not sure if such a system would go down well with most of the BAs, I doubt so.
I think the current re-draw after playing group matches is a pretty sound idea, overall the matches are pretty good, TPE vs INA, JPN vs DEN, KOR vs MAS will be close matches outcome is not certain at all. CHN match, well, CHN vs TPE or DEN both matches have at least 2 'gimme' points. Can't really pin it on the draw
i also like the idea of a group match, that way we get to see different team against each other. the random draw after group match is also great. we have adopted that drawing in our local corporate tournament.
They could say groups A and B will meet groups C and D in the quarters, that is to split the four groups in two halves and cross the halves for the quarters.
China is indeed a lucky team, they avoided stronger team like Korea and Japan for Quarter-finals and Semi-Finals, these teams are able to upset them. PS: Remember Thomas Cup 2014 where Japan destroy them 3-0? Bad draw for the bottom half four as if any team win their quarterfinal match, they have to deal with another great battle in the semi-final. I prefer to see these teams play against China earlier compare to the final match.
Malaysia is still luckier to meet Korea rather than China in the quarterfinals, with Korea they still have a chance of replicating their early success.
It's a historic fluke of decades, just like the more spectacular one in table tennis, when the women's team of SIN bt CHN 3-1 in the 2010 Liebherr World Team Championships in Moscow. After that CHN is ever extra cautious against SIN team in the line-up composition and the Merlion team go no further. Don't think JPN will even come close to that in the next TC. Not to mention that SC is entirely a different game. But it will be my pleasure to see the JPN team make into the final this time
If you follow the players line-up, it is not impossible for Japan to beat China in every match except for XD. In recent years, both Japanese man and womans' teams have grew stronger and better. As for Korea, I can see they are capable to challenge China in all of their matches.
