Onto day 2 now: MS D2: Not many remarkable games on day 2, Dicky was never in it against sato. He is not quick enough to counter sato attack, but not strong enough to control the game and attack himself. Sony looked comfortable against Hafiz, who needs to get some drive from somewhere, he just looked like he wasn;t interested in working hard to find the shuttle, happy to chase the shuttle, hit a few crowd pleasing trick shots and lose. Simon Santoso is nowhere near LD level, but has good allround technique, LCW was comfortable against Kasper odeum and Bao seemed off the pace, but able to survive Richard Vaughn, who knows how to win points should be rising up the rankings again now. WS D2: Saina Nehwal had wang chen almost beaten, despite being 10-8 down in the third game she was in control of rallies and wang chen was very tired. Saina however then failed to spot all she needed to do was play wang chen around the court and she would make errors, but she herself started hitting errors, maybe nervous? an wang survived. give this girl 2 more years and I think she will be capable of winning AE 2009 Other results were not surprising except WMC, who looks much fitter, faster and consistent than when I saw her struggling to beat Tracey Hallam in the commonwealth games. She can rally harder than Wang Lin, and Wang (or Lu Lan on Day 1) didn't have the killer strokes to defeat her. If she can develop some better strokes she can also with Saina make WS interesting again. MD D2: This was a story of fast and frenetic pairs like Zakry/Latif and Lin/Tazari Cai/FU against consistent and strong Pairs from DEN/POL and Clinical Pairs from KOR. All the matches were good, and the Surprise POL pair are very good. KOR Pairs looked stronger in attack than last year, and within 2 years I think they will emerge to Be world beaters. WD D2: Polish pair played well, but would be meandering to an All CHN Semi if not for the draw separation. Gao/Huang For 7 in a row. XD D2: Not too many good games here. ENG pair Vs NZ/MAL pair close, but never good, many errors from both sides, and not much quality. Looking forward to good later rounds here though, where I predict all KOR + CHN Semis Lee/Hwang to Play Gao/Zheng in Final. If the KOR Women can improve another level, they will start to dominate this discipline. Nice to see Ha tae Kwon Coaching XD (even though I don't think he ever played it) He seems to really influence them. Dan Shirley has improved since Commonwealth games too, Joanne Quay Is not strong enough though I feel, she is a good player, but when in later rounds XD women need to control the net, and she is a bit laid back for this.
I'm surprised that Saina did not move Wang Chen around more when the latter seemed to be tired as described. Surely coach Gopi must be around to advice her - no??? My hats off to Mew Choo for defeating two up-coming young talents from China successively. MC must be lower in world ranking than they? Hope MC can offer inspiration to LCW with her scintillating performance. James, were you at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games. If you were, we certainly missed you!
Nice reports. I saw Gao/Zheng in Malaysia. Basically, they are almost the same as the Gao/Zhang partnership ... only 'a' changed to 'e' ... haha ... but seriously, basically the same but without the fooling around of Zhang Jun.
Yes, as of now this 'new' China XD partnership doesn't quite emit that sort of a spark as the new Malaysian MD partnership of KKK/TBH. To me the taller Zheng (than Zhang) seems a bit stiff and not as agile as 'clown' Zhang.
Good report,james. Thanx. I certainly hope your observation about the WS would come true. China has been too dominant recently and we hope that a new wave of talents like Saina and WMC can break the strangle hold of the Chinese in this event.
Good to read these reports....I'm gutted I can't make it there this year. BTW I'm sure Ha did play mixed - he lost in the AE final to Archer and Goode in 99 (I think).
