Chinese Badminton

Allow me to repost my view from the Dubai SSF 2016 thread:-

Yes, both Tai TY and Sung JH are certainly top notch players, highly experienced, no doubt about that.

I'm just concerned that He Bingjiao is strangely not showing much intensity, and little or no sense of urgency, so unlike her recently that it makes me wonder what's wrong with her. Is she beginning to feel the pressure of the burden of expectation thrust upon her by the sudden absence of her three illustrious seniors, LXR, WYH and WSX ? Perhaps I expected too much from her, she needs time to mature and progress, accumulate experience, gain more exposure and find her footing now that she is fully transited into the senior pro circuit.

The problem is CHN WS is facing a crisis of sorts, a deficit in talents to quickly fill the void or shortfall , and there's no way of knowing with any certainty when or how LXR will perform in her comeback sometime next year. So for the time being, the heavy responsibilities of stepping up to the plate fall squarely on the relatively young shoulders of Sun Yu and He Bingjiao with their shortcomings and vulnerabilities evident and exposed now and then, clearly lacking in stability and consistency. Whether it's themselves or their coaches pushing them hard, their current uneven form is both concerning and revealing, either they rise to the occasion in good time or crumble under the weight suddenly much to the detriment of their young career.

In my humble opinion, neither Sun Yu nor He Bingjiao seem fully ready to take up the mantle yet, apparently the unexpected predicament they suddenly find themselves in are more than they can handle at the moment. Quite naturally, this kind of trying situation often happens whenever you don't have a smooth transition between the old guards and the new. Just my musings.

 

True, Sun Yu at 1,83m tall, is big and somewhat hefty, relative to other tall players like Sindhu, 1.79m, and Sung J H, 1.75m.

To be frank, among the three tall players, I prefer Sindhu and Sung JH's game to Sun Yu's, both of them are nimbler and more effective in their attacks and defense, it seems, an advantage which the heavier and slower Sun Yu couldn't exploit herself as well . As a result, Sun Yu tends to play a bit more rallying and controlled game vis-a-vis the two mentioned whilst on the contrary I thought her forte is to seize the initiative and dictate the rally more.

Interestingly, Sun Yu has a shutout H2H over Tai Tzu Ying, 5-0 (apart form the previous week's loss in the CBSL encounter which is non-BWF sanctioned). But I tend to agree with you that TTY in her current top form is probably one up on her now should they meet next.

As for He Bingjiao, after her recent breakthrough winning three titles - two SS and one GPG - in two months, she is manifesting a kind of pullback, going through a consolidation phase, hopefully a temporary one before she advances again as she has time on her side at age 19 and a prodigious talent, in my opinion.

For the time being, the two CHN WS are clearly struggling to fill the shoes of their three illustrious seniors, namely, LXR, WYH and WSX. Personally, I'd love to see the 18-yr-old Chen Yufei join the ranks of her eminent seniors as soon as possible.

 

I mean, who would've thought,almost inconceivable,that Chinese badminton has all of a sudden fallen to a state where she has to depend mostly on a bunch of 18- to 20-year -olds to quickly take up the slack and hold aloft the national flag when they are not full ready.

Happily, these CHN juniors look to be bright prospects for the future. Except that for now,they are likely to hit a snag until such time they become mature and experienced enough.

 

I'm referring to the future of Chinese badminton in the hands of their juniors and up-and-comers.

After the conclusion of the Dubai SSF where CHN won two golds in XD Chen Qingchen/Zheng Siwei and WD Cheng Qingchen/Jia Yifan, we can say that for now, CHN XD and WD are definitely in good hands, taking into account all their most recent results as well.

In WS, we have He Bingjiao and soon to join the ranks Chen Yufei and perhaps, Chen Xiaoxin.

In MS, we have Shi Yuqi, Zhao Junpeng and Xue Song,possibly, Lin Guipu.

In MD, we have Li Junhui and Liu Yuchen but not yet out of the woods, still CHN's weakest link.

The best part is they are all 18 to 20 years old and they represent China's greatest hope for world supremacy within the next one, two years.

 

The worry is if both Zheng Siwei and Chen Qingchen are doing double duty all the time, they will be overstretched and may risk injury. As it is CQC already admitted at the post-match interview to being fatigued after winning two titles at the Dubai SSF and I'd expect ZSW to be worse as the role of the male doubles player in both MD and XD is equally physically demanding unlike the females doubles player whose role in XD is not as strenuous as in the WD because most of the heavy lifting in XD is carried out by the male player.

But as we know, ZSW often plays MD as well in many of the tournaments he participated. Still I hope these two exceptional youngsters take care not to pushed themselves too hard or be over-ambitious as the risk of a career-ending injury is a real threat. Why rush when they are still so young ?

Still,I have a strong feeling they will want to give it a try. Let's wait and see.

 

It turned out the BWF has sent various member associations an electronic service detector for service faults to try out and gather feedback from various parties with a view to implementing the device at Tokyo 2020 Olympics, and I presume at other BWF-sanctioned events prior to that.

As apparent, the service detector is meant to take the place of human service judges and at the moment during the testing stage there are three service heights to choose from. In the above Chinese article, Li Yongbo is testing it in CBA and using the 1.1m height standard, the article didn't mentioned what the other two heights are. In time to come, BWF will decide whether to use the device and and at what height as standard.

(My humble translation follows starting from para.4, skipping the first three which I've briefly touched upon in general above)

Li Yongbo after having personally demonstrated the service using the device as judge said to his players:" The best method is to be aware of the line in front (at the net) and not lose sight of it, but watch the height at practice, 1.1 m is here, you'll know when you get used to it, just lift your hands and serve, when serving don't do any unnecessary actions or previous small habits. For the shuttle hand you must fix it at the service height, then how you serve is up to you."

These few days, Li Yinhui the doubles specialist who's been hard at practising the serve said:" As I normally don't commit service faults, so even though the device is at the side, it has no effect on me. Furthermore, it's at the testing stage at the moment , the final height standard is yet to be fixed, I'll still go according to my habit which hasn't crossed the line. I feel that we ladies are alright as we're not too tall,normally we don't break the service rules, but for tall male players there will be some restrictions; anyway as far as China players are concerned it should be advantageous because our serves are generally orderly."

For the 1.9 m tall Hong Wei it's not so easily adaptable as for Li Yinhui, he said owing to his height his service position is naturally taller than others, therefore he felt the service detector will affect him. However, in order to quickly adapt to it, he has been practising to refine it these few days but as to how long it will take for him to avoid transgression in front of the device, he has no idea.

Using the electronic device in place of the naked eye for service fault is perhaps another of BWF's major reforms after the implementation of Hawk-Eye for linecalls, and during the Tokyo Olympic cycle, it is still not the only change to be introduced by BWF. From last year BWF has selectively in lower tier tournaments been trying out the best of five sets 11-point scoring system.

Last week's Lingsui's CHN International Challenge is also China's first trial of the new scoring system. BWF hopes through more such trials in 2017 tournaments to decide whether to implement the new system across the board in 2018.

On this matter Li Yongbo expressed that the 11-point scoring system may be carried out before the Tokyo Olympics, it will be put on trial until year end before final discussion, but the electronic service detector and the standard height to be used is most likely to be adopted very soon. As such he is asking all his players to quickly get used to it as much as possible so as not to be at a disadvantage come Tokyo 2020.

 

Sports in general is no longer about keeping fit and healthy for the population at large with economic and societal benefits , it has become so commercialised by professional sports where the big money is, that's the reality and it spawns all sorts of related business such as professional clubs (trading players), equipment manufacturers, company sponsorship and advertisements, sport science and management, training and coaching, sports therapy,m and so on and so forth. Whenever there is money to be made, you can be sure big business wants to have a hand in it and they set the standards and agenda on what is considered the best of the best.

Amateur sport just have to simply make do with whatever pass muster and affordable. Obviously, your commonsense suggestion on ruling where the 'waist ' is or limiting the service rule to 'underarm' is exactly what often gives rise to subjective and arbitrary implementation of the service rule, not to mention intentional abuse by service judges with personal motive apart from human error. In other words, like the use of Hawk-Eye, we would rather trust machines than humans - that's the sad fact of life, particularly when the stakes involved are high.