By winning the French Open MS title in such a commanding fashion against such a technically superb player like Bao Cun lai, Lee Chong Wei had done justice to Morten Frost's view of the player.
More than 10 years ago when Morten Frost was coaching the Malaysian national team, he saw a very skinny lad from Penang of 14 years of age displaying lots of talent and tenacity that morten had to break down doors to get him selected to the Badminton academy.
LCW was small and skinny, lacked strength and at 14 many thought he was too old to be trained into a champion.
LCW certainly trained hard to get where he is today.
His strength is his tenacity. Even when he is down and staring at defeat, he would not give up and fight for evey point.
He did that to Lin Dan last year when he was down 13-20 in the 3rd Set and went on to win the match at 23-21.
Today at the french open, already having a bandaged knee which saw Bao overpowering him last week, he played efficiently without too many elaborate shots but still manage to stamp the match with his mark.
Badders of old and new can see a bit of Morten Frost, Misbun Sidek, Foo Kok Keong, Zhao jian Hua and some veteran even say Tan Aik Huang all roled into him.
But he has his own style too, the disguised cross court smash and forecourt leaping drop where you cant even see his racket or shoulder moving. The latter I think is distinctly his own.
Malaysia have had many promising single Players for the past 25 years but none have made any big impact in international badminton in so far as winning major tournament is concerned.
Lee Chong Wei's record is the best for Malaysia in the last 25 years and I hope he can bag the holy grail of Badminton, the All England and the Olympc title next year for after that, he would be a little bit aged at 27 and the youngsters would pose tough challenge to his staying on top of the men's single wolf pack.