It is not that I am good, it is just that these 3 kidos are a little bit behind me but catching up fast. I shouldn't call them kidos, they are 15, 22 and 25, esp the 15 who trained at a high end club and went to the SF in the Provincial championship.
When you think about it...only reason why this is a blow to Yonex is because they lost the sponsorship to the Chinese team since the Chinese team won most of the medals.
It is all in the advertisement with high profile badminton player endorsing them, mutual financial benefit to the player and the manufacturer...I have one friend who go to HK every year on business and he would come back with 2 of the latest high end rackets, LN and/or YY (he is rich and can afford them). His bag has at any one time 7 rackets. I discussed with him how he can get used to the different 'feel' 'balance' (i.e. head heavy, balanced, etc) in each racket when he keep changing them. He just came back and bought an Arc 10 and another white YY racket which is head heavy. I tried it and it screw up my game. My Apac LT50 is better and this fella still can't beat me.
There are multiple examples. Li-Ning, Forza, Mizuno all use more expensive graphite than YY (woven, real CNTs etc.). If we take LN-rackes, they have conical shafts (bio-inner-cone), they reinforce the "voltric" points by weaving layers on the top N-series, and they do much more test-driven development making use of the china national team as "guiniepigs" and development-testers. Mizuno uses tetra-axial woven, SCC etc. Forza real CNT not just fullerene nano, Victor has numerous patents and have strong techonology/research (inside-wave, spiral-wind fibers etc).. The idea of ti-inserts and tungsten at these points are nothing new.. In Sweden the brand Prince is still around with some old rackets similar to the voltric design. They called it triple-threat. The whole point is that the technology 2010 allows yo to do EXACTLY the same as the voltric wthout doing the frame wider at these points (by just using more expensive material to enforce the "tri-voltage" points, instead of adding width.. the reason for YY to add-width is just to make it visibly different".. Li ning pretty much alread has the same thing with the manual applied carbon layers at these points, but that is not visible to the naked eye . so manking it visible helps marketing, and of course makes it less expensive to produce, as it it becomes stronger at the weak spots without adding more expensive material or manual labor for racket-manufacturing process Of course team china switched due to a sweet deal finacially and probably also to a big degree based on national pride. But I am pretty sure that their number one priority is for success in winning gold medals and competitions for their players, so if they felt that Yonex would provide them with greater chanses of getting gold in big tournaments, I am pretty sure they would have stuck with Yonex. Now I think they also felt that they coul more influence the rackets and technology to "design" them more based on the needs to get success for their players, than to be just one of many customers. There is little doubt that China has been MORE dominant than they where before on the wld scen after making the switch to Li-Ning. Would you not agree on that? I don't see what made you beleive I have that view?? My view is simply that he has a less sophisticated racket (the 900P) than his main competitors (like Park, CJ, LD, Boonsak, Chen Long, Nguyen etc.) but we all know that there are aóther factors far more important than absolute top racket-performance wen playing badminton, and that he beats most payers regardless what racket he would use. The fact that Yonex has not been abble to get him to switch from Armortec (a dead model-series according to Yoenx reps over here) says alot. That is just utter nonsense, the statement is just diplaying a lack of knowledge about the rackets and design/technology LN rackets are far from yonex clones If you do not regard all rackets using ISO-frames in general or using carbon-fibre as "Yonex clones" VT line may be a huge success sales wise, and may be used by many hugely succesful players, who knows.. But the idea of ussingg more material for strength than higgher quality material for strengt and keep it slim all-tha way, is puttting economics before perfromance, and I think that is the wrong direction for Yonex to take. That is wh companies like Yonex, Li-Ning and Victor should involve highly skilled players in testing and tweaking the rackets at an early stage.. Compare this to F1.. Noboy in the rright mind would think they would designa a F1 car in the wind tunnel and the put it to race before intensive testing and tweaking using their highly skilled drivers. Well my point was really that rackets from YY and LN are not much differnet and "more" overpriced than many other consumer goods? And by your statement you seem to be in agreement with that. ------------------- Actually they lost Korea, players from India, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Denmark etc. etc. So it is not really a China Issue. China is just the confirmation that China still have the edge (I would even go so far as to say tem China has been more dominant since making the switch from Yonex), and that dropping Yonex probably was a good move in retrospective for them. /Twobeer
Actually they lost Korea, players from India, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Denmark etc. etc. So it is not really a China Issue. China is just the confirmation that China still have the edge (I would even go so far as to say tem China has been more dominant since making the switch from Yonex), and that dropping Yonex probably was a good move in retrospective for them. /Twobeer[/QUOTE] If China is more dominant after switching over to LiNing, then how come the all mighty Chinese Women's lost to Korea in the Uber Cup finals? Everyone knows that the Chinese Women's singles and doubles are the strongest, and yet they failed to retain the cup with their LiNing products. I don't disagree that there are other great rackets out there beside Yonex. However, if it wasn't for Yonex, then badminton wouldn't be what it would be today. For the past 10 - 20 years, Yonex has been the only sponsor of major competition, and they are still the majority of these big competition. Other companies just see what great market share Yonex has and just want a piece of it. Yonex pumped money into making the sport big, and now others are coming in to reap the reward. So seriously, which company is in it for the sport, and which is in it for the money? As for Yonex losing sponsorship, I highly doubt it that it's because of racket, shoe, clothing or any of the equipment technology. It's all do to money. If you have your team, don't tell me that you're not going to take the company that gives you the most sponsorship.
Personally I think they underestimated the Korean girls, and Korea played at their absoulte best capacity and tactic ability.. And if we keep on topic, the Korean Girls didnt really use any Yonex gear in that match as well. nd if you read what I write in this post you can see that I find Vicotr to alongside with Li-Ning use more advanced technology in their equipment than the latest Yonex models. I totally agree that Yonex has been leading the way for many years. But I d not think its a Charity-organization, I think they have done this to try to increase their overal profits and sales, just as the other racket-producers. If they where in it for the sport they could at least start paying LCW as much as they pay Lleyton Hewitt and the other tennis players they sponsor.. ... If it was only down to money I think Yonex would have payed trough their nose to keep team China, but I think there was a combination of package, politics, personal contacts, national pride that made them take the leap of fait over to Li-Ning. Basically I think the Li-Ning offer was a) we give you the money and everything YY-offers you b) we will jointly develop and research together with national team and do averything to support the team b) we will produce tailormade rackets for all team players based on individual requirements c) we will have team china as our no.1 focus... I think it would be very hard for the Chinese team managers to say no to such an offer... ... /Twobeer
I would say Yonex just lost their super celebrity endorsements (chinese team) needed for their products. Not because of the racket or tech whatosoever. In Marketing, celebrity endorsement is highly effective, just like how Monster cables endorsed Lady Gaga, P.Diddy and Dr.Dre for their Monster Beats headphones and IEM range (which are totally crappy). You can see how effective this celebrity endorsement strategy is by just realising that this discussion is mainly driven by it. and adding to twobeer's point, esp. regarding LCW might be a little left behind in terms of racket sophistication and technology, I do think that makes sense, i mean...to have a racket that might add an extra few km/h might be able to change the tide of your game completely, yes it wont matter much to the normal consumers or recreational players like us ( having an extra 3km/h into my 160km/h smash won't help much ), but to the pros? its a different story totally. Same like f1 race, if you add just a few this and that, change this and that, even by a slight degree, just to gain that extra kilometer or speed advantage means alot, add that to your normal commuter car, or a van, wont do much, especially when 0.0001sec wont really be counted into the Punch Card machine... but hey, that's just my 0.02.
Cannot say i see much similarites with Lady Gaga and P.Diddy endorsing Monster Cables.. (that is more like Lin Dan endorsing RedBull drinks to me ) But I see your point cheers, Twobeer
Well they beat the same Korean team 4-1 in the group-stage at that particular Über Cup, so the way I see it was that is was more of a freak accident at work , and they have since won 5/5 gold WC titles a feat they have not managed since 1987 and easilly won in this years AG over the Koreans supports this imop.. Of course I can if it is me who is holding the chequebook. The manager of Yonex are not forced to spend their money on Hewitt over LCW.. People put the money where the mouth is... If you want to endorse badminton then you put your money there, if you want to promote tennis or Golf then you put your money there.. quite simple really. You cannot claim have badminton as your number one priority if you spend more money on Tennis. Yes I agree, in the end its money making the racket-technology...but I don't see any contradiction in this with my observation that Yonex has some problems. Its not like they took the golds that China faild to clinch neither in the mentioned Über cup nor in XD,MD in this Asian Games... Yes of course, that is the way they do it and that is why they have the National-Team modelseries and then other modelseries like UltraCarbon, Elastic TI (3G-Ti i think they call it), Grommet-less designs, nano-line, superlight (Windstorm series) etc.. more geared to specific racket-technologies much like armortec, voltric etc. series..
I spent too much on her already, its time to spoil myself I can at least feel the specs with blindfold. But yes you are correct, design influence a lot. Lets say a racket with an almost perfect specs but looks ugly, then i wont buy. Well i heard your arguement many times before. How about 2 identical players, one with a wooden racket and one with N90, which one you will put your money on?? I rest my case
Well they won 4/5 Gold at the Sydney Olypic with Yonex rackets. It's not small accomplishment right? But the fact is that they lost and they were using LiNing's racket. My point is that their dominance is not in do to the LiNing products. China's dominance in the players itself. Well does Hewitt belong to an association like LCW is to BAM? One is independant and the other is contracted to an association, so how can you say it's the same?
I actually loved that point... Which brings us back to the point that this conversation sheared sideways. The unfounded claim that "Yonex is superior in terms of techology". The only conclusion if that claim is true is those technologies that Yonex is so superior about did not give its players any further edge than its competitors. IOW, those technologies did not matter. There is also this misguided notion that Yonex is in badminton not for profit but for badminton. When they completely dominated the sports, their revenue is pegged on the segment's growth. They have effectively bought out the mindshare for the segment that new entrants like LN are just overpriced low end copy cats. Please. Recognise that Yonex is a proper company (not non-profit) and there is nothing wrong with that.
I am a poor lad... I only use Victor (entry level) for SGD$50+... and I see many young lads here using expensive YY and LN rackets... wow... sure impressive... no?
in the end, racket technology nowadays do not impact a match as much as racket skills, footwork, fitness and strategy. regardless of what racket super dan chooses from de badminton shop, he can easily slap datuk left-right center even if datuk uses de arcsaber or latest armortecs.
If so, what if i buy some cheap rackets with plastic string from tesco, jusco or night market and give it to Lin dan to face Lee Chong Wei? I can bet with you 100 satays if u want. I take LCW
The idea that YY have lost because the Chinese players with their Lining have won is so absurd... Or Korea, or Thailand, etc. Some of you guys are so gullible! YY just have a different marketing strategy, they go for popular players like Peter Gade or TH, and not for winners at team events - do you yhink YY would sell more racket with CJ then with TH? (But yeah, LD was a loss for sure!) I am sure all those brands' top rackets are all very good; they just have to provide different types to suit different styles. If LCW stick with AT 900, certainly it is because he is comfortable with it.
