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.
