WHY had a taste of power smashes in the first set against LZJ. He was shell struck. But I believe he will take away a lot from the experience. He changed his game in the second set and nearly made it . I am looking forward to their next encounter.
I am amazed at WZI 's performance beating ASY and AY, both ranked higher .And she has very poor drop shots. She doesnt have the confidence in her drop shots, making many easy mistakes. Her strength is her accurate lobs to the baseline interspersed by great smashes. The win will give her the confidence she certainly needed. Her performance augurs well for the Uber Cup, China having 3 good singles. Congratulations WZI, I always felt she needed a great smash on top of her good stroke play. But she needs to improve her drop shots both in execution and defence. She does her drop shots in a frontal way. She should execute them sideways,ie step sideways to do it. I also notice she gets caught by her opponents drop shots. I think she is too far from the T and has to stretch to retrieve the drop shot. My amateur observations.
ASG's style of play and ZJP's shows so clearly the difference between the two . ASG uses speed,power and craftiness which caught ZJP flatfooted. ZJP is trained to play a steady straightforward game which tires out the opposition. From an early age the Sea youngsters are shown these trick shots. These sort of shots are not encouraged ,I feel in the Chinese game. That's why ZJP is caught out. He doesn't know that the shot can be played so he is caught unawares. The only Chinese player that has this talent is Zhao Jian Hua. What a joy to watch. Alas I don't think someone like that can appear on the scene.
ASG played and won against two widely different styles of play in 2 days. In his match against ZJP he looked weak in the 3rd game and against a weaker player. In today's game against a talented and very unchinese style of player he won convincingly in the 3rd game. It shows good mental strength and great talent. What a shamble the Chinese men's players are now in. The talents China had in the London Olympics was the last great show . Can it be said that those players were trained from the coaches that came from Indonesia? Chen Long and SYQ are the only 2 that shone since then. WHY? He played unexpectedly badly against Vittinghus and also against LZJ of Malaysia. One question needs to be addressed. Why are the women's and mixed double teams doing so well ? The men in the XD are the best smashes in the Chinese team. Frankly watching China's MS performance in the Thomas Cup is embarrassing, to say the least.
Indeed, if we compare the two traditional sports that China is dominant for quite a long time, table tennis and badminton, their contrasting fortunes in the last decade since 2012 London Olympics where they made a clean sweep of the gold medals is rather puzzling - their table tennis continues to be on top of the world whilst badminton was knocked off their pedestal till today. Yes, China's women's badminton is faring better than their male counterparts, and many of us do know some of the reasons for their overall downfall, for which we each have our explanations and speculations, still, ten years have passed (minus a year or two for the pandemic) and there is as yet no definite signs that China may regain their erstwhile preeminence. Lest you mistakenly thought I 'm arguing for China to be supreme once again like before, I just want to state the obvious, whether that is a good thing or not is beside the point.
Chinese coaches have been freeloading for far too long. They need to get rid of the useless XXZ, such consistency of failures cannot be tolerated, it’s just embarrassing.
I doubt we we will see a resurgence of China in the next few years. They have prolonged disruption because of sticking to zero covid policy. The rest of the world has moved on…..
chinese mens singles coaching strategy should be changed. all the players going for defensive type of play not attacking. Li shifeng going for attacking but his smashes are not lethal and flat. Wneg hongyang seems to be slow in the movements. Seeing how zhou haoudong playing can't believe that he has won china national games last year.
Yeah, but how about the new generation who are supposed to replacements for the future a couple of years down the line?
Accountability must be forthcoming for this disaster and embarressment. This state of affairs has been brewing for a long time. Yes XXZ has to go. But I think the top management of the CBA should be held responsible as they have governed the game. Compare that group of people in charge of badminton to the people in charge of table tennis . In terms of management and marketing skills they have let the badminton players and fans down. At this rate the public will lose interest in the game.This point is not XXZ's responsibilty. Its the People in the CBA who sit on the Board hoping that a good result is achieved instead of looking at the trends and planning for the future. Heads must roll just as when a bridge collapses.
One thing is noticeable in the table tennis training structure. It's the previous world singles champions LGL and another that are in charge and they are complemented by a team who coach some of the players individually. They are quite formidable if you had watched them The CBA can use the same formula . It's like getting Lin Dan in charge with some of the others and they are given the task of managing the players. The table tennis coaching team will probably have a very good financial deal. Just to let you know how good this arrangement is, LGL had an unfortunate incident and was temporarily sacked by the the tennis Board. But the players and his coaching team came out publicly and asked for his reinstatemen. I know LD was offered the job but was he given the same terms as LGL and his team? Just my 2 cents worth.
Who's the most potential among those three to be world beater? Btw, Lei Lanxi (born 1998) isn't classified as junior anymore, already 24 years old but lack of international exposures.
But he is alone. In the table tennis coaching team there appears to be a team who work together. In badminton xxz is not given supreme power to make decisions. In anycase I don't think he has the skills like LG. liang in TT
Would love to see Sun Jun as part of the coaching team. A very smart player. What might he be able to achieve?
