Chinese Badminton

That has been the problem or disadvantage facing promising CHN juniors who are still eligible for the junior circuit, they only get to play a few low level senior pro circuit tournaments, at most four on average. A common grouse or disincentive for the CHN juniors even for the handful who are gifted, such as Wang Zhiyi.

As far as developing the juniors is concerned, CBA tends to put these talented juniors on the back burner for the pro circuit until they are ineligible for the junior circuit at about age 19, or once they turned 18 and no longer qualify for the junior championships as they have to remain 18 years old in the year the junior event is held.

Just look at Intanon Ratchanok, the Thai child prodigy, who at age 14 was already competing in the pro circuit, winning the Viet Int'l Challenge in 2009, and the four years later went on to win the world title at age 18, the youngest singles world champion ever in badminton.

But, I have to admit CBA of late, after the change in top management recently , has liberalised some of their policies, even allowing the provincial teams to take part in any international tournaments on their own. I supposed that explains why we are beginning to see more of the CHN juniors as young as age 16 to 18 playing more frequently at the pro circuit level, such as Wang Zhiyi when she was 17 last year, Zhou Meng at age 16 last year, just to name two but mainly because those were events held in China.

So, in a sense, I do agree with you, there have been changes afoot but they didn't go far enough, still too conservative or restrictive as compared with other countries. I suspect one of the concerns for the CHN coaches being less willing to send their juniors to adult level tournaments too often is the fear that their repeated defeats, esp humiliating ones, might demoralised them and leave a lasting phobia or negative effect on their growth and development.

But, I feel they worry too much for I believe these kids are fully aware of their own limitations and should be realistic enough not to have high expectations, and even if they sometimes manage to cause a few upsets by beating much higher ranked senior players, they know not to get carried away or overrate their abilities until they start to win a few decent titles and prove themselves capable of holding their own against some of the topo echelon players in the pro circuit. But as that kind of achievement is something of a rarity, an exception rather than the rule, very few junior players would have the good fortune of letting success get into their heads.

In the event that you happen to have such a young prodigy, that's a blessing , not a curse,isn't it? I mean, if he/she becomes arrogant and overrates themselves, pride goes before a fall, and they will learn their lesson soon enough, that's part of growing up and learning from life's experience. Indeed, it's a luxury any BA can well afford to have such a rare gem at such a young age, a child prodigy, and worry about the rest of the problems later.

 

I guess CBA is presently giving priority to the slightly older second tier MS such as Lu Guangzu, Zhou Zeqi, Ren Pengbo (haven't seen him playing for a while now), Zhao Junpeng, Sun Feixiang (and who else) first while the younger 18-yr-old Gu Junfeng and the 19-yr-old Gao Zhengze may be temporarily put on hold or wait their turns, unless they prove exceptional to convince the coaches to put them on the fast track.

That's the problem, CBA started late in sending their many juniors to the senior circuit and they have a backlog as they are probably reluctant to send too many of them to the same tournaments as they would end up playing each other in the early rounds, thus defeating the purpose.

Therefore, I think it's necessary and important for a number of these MS players to rise as quickly as possible through the ranks so as to avoid having to meet their fellow teammates in the early rounds, or , better still, qualify for the mid-level tournaments and avoid playing too many of the same low level tournaments. Just saying.

As CHN WS is not out of the woods yet, far from it, it's understandable for CBA to pay more attention to it than to their MS, I should think so.

 

Yeah, actually other than WTS tournaments, there are many Int'l Series and Challenge events for the CHN junior circuit players to compete in to acquire experience, gain tournament practice and facilitate their transition to the pro circuit sooner, particularly for those promising ones. Not sure why CBA aren't keen on those low level tourneys. Perhaps they think it's not worth spending resources on them, but they can well afford it, I believe.

Maybe they can consider appointing some provincial level coaches to accompany those kids there instead of using their national coaches. Why not, good for the young juniors , age 14 to 17/18, and a source of income for those coaches who want to make extra money and improve on their coaching ability during competition at the international level.

 

I just discovered Gao Zhengze's name was submitted for the Viet Open WTS100 event next month but he has zero ranking points, unranked, and placed in the reserve list as R34 - no hope of him getting to play.

There's another Wang Hongyang, R9, slim chance too.

Btw, Lu Guangzu and Zhou Zeqi are in the main draw.

The other categories also have unknown lowly ranked quantities in the reserve list. In a way, yes, CBA is trying to send more of their 2nd tier and young juniors to the pro circuit tournaments.

 

This article talks about CBA attaching great importance to developing their national youth/junior teams
http://sports.sina.com.cn/others/badmin/2018-07-19/doc-ihfnsvza6074914.shtml

For a start, the CBA national 2nd team has tentatively set up a classification structure based on age groups for all the national junior players, that is, those under 19 years old, born in 1999, 2000 and 2001 are included as part of the national 2nd team, with those born in 2001 and 2002 as backup/reserves, and even those born 2003 , currently 15 years old and under, will undergo short-term training camp to progressively integrate them into the national junior backup team.

In accordance with the requirements of the National Sports Centre's latest reforms , CBA from this year onward will restructure the junior championships into the U-series, namely, U10-11, U12-13, U14-15, U16-17 and U16-18, altogether five age group tournaments. In each age group, it is again divided into three levels, namely District, Main and Finals events.

The CBA reforms are not restricted to professional events but also extended to national fitness competition for the population at large [I shall skip the part which touches on the promotion and popularization of the sport of badminton at the grassroots level across the entire nation as part of the national health and fitness programmes. Also I'm skipping the part about the restructuring and expansion of reserve talent pools across the country, currently there are 39 such bases - Justin].

Furthermore, CBA also plans to set up a national youth team [If I'm not wrong, it used to be there are the national 1st and 2nd teams with the juniors coming under the 2nd team together with the 2nd tier and backup players - Justin]. CBA secretary-general,Wang Wei, stated that presently there are only about 3000 professional registrants for badminton ,lower than in other countries like Japan, South Korea, India, Malaysia. CBA intends to increase the number of persons employed as badminton professionals, by starting with nurturing of children, by liberalising the openings for professionals, such as through the reserve pool of talent bases, the U-series tournaments, the North-South-East-West-Central Youth competitions and other channels to gather personnel, expand youth team staffing structure, cultivate more professional level coaching personnel,only by doing so can they then push forward the sustainable development of Chinese badminton.

 

Rather unusual for China to be participating in the Akita Masters WTS100 event, probably for the first time.

For most of us, the only recognisable name in the CHN camp is Lu Guangzu, the other two MS are Wu Songjian and Xu Yiming (24 years old).

For the WS , we have a former national player, Hui Xirui, 24 years old, Fan Mengyan, 23 years old, and unknown Wu Yuhan, all three WS having to play the qualifiers, none in the main draw.

For the three doubles categories, they are practically unknowns, except for Shen Yabing whom I've some memory of.

I suspect they are all from the same province as Lu Guangzu who is leading the team as CBA nowadays allow provincial team to take part in international events. Still,I don't quite understand why LGZ alone of the national 2nd team is going along. Very interesting development, nevertheless.

 

The lineup for China in the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games as follows:
http://sports.qq.com/a/20180725/041174.htm

Team Event: MS Chen Long, Shi Yuqi, Lin Dan, and Qiao Bin;
MD Zhang Nan, Li Junhui, Liu Yuchen, Wang Yilu, Zheng Siwei, and Liu Cheng;
WS He Bingjiao, Chen Yufei, Gao Fangjie, and Cai Yanyan (but no Li Xuerui)
WD Chen Qingchen, Jia Yifan, Huang Yaqiong, Huang Dongping, Tang Jinhua, and Zheng Yu

Individual Event: MS Chen Long and Shi Yuqi
WS He Bingjiao and Chen Yufei
MD Zhang Nan/Liu Cheng and Li Junhui/Liu Yuchen
WD Chen Qingchen/Jia Yifan and Tang Jinhua/Zheng Yu
XD Zheng Siwei/Huang Yaqiong and Wang Yilu/Huang Dongping

 

To me, the fact that 18-year-old Cai Yanyan is chosen in place of Li Xuerui for the Jakarta Asian Games Team Event is an affirmation of CYY's potential and talents by the CHN coaches led by Head Coach, XIa Xuanze.