The CHN WS have a lot to learn from the newly crowned Asian Games WD Champion, Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan, in terms of mental toughness and fighting spirit - dauntless, true grit, tenacity, a never-say-die attitude, veritably a personification of 'when the going gets tough, the tough get going' in view of their recent unflattering tournaments results, near misses and disappointments. What a transformation !
Just look at the way tChen/Jia bested , first, Fukushima/Hirota yesterday, then Matsutomo/Takahashi today, both of whom, among a few other pairs who have troubled them lately.
That is just what the CHN WS lack, generally - what the Chinese called 'Qi' or vital energy, life energy, life force, or life spirit. I simply don't see it in Chen Yufei, He Bingjiao, Zhang Yiman, Han Yue, and to a certain degree in Gao Fangjie, but, perhaps less obvious in Chen Xiaoxin, Cai Yanyan and Wang Zhiyi, the last three named I hope may prove to be the exception though it's still somewhat early to say.
The only bright spot is that CHN WS have many young, promising prospects, heartening to see, much more reassuring than their male counterparts. Glad to see there's another junior CHN WS, 17-year-old Zhou Meng, to look out for.
Apparently, CHN MS is showing unmistakable signs of trouble, a worrying state of affairs in view of, say, Lin Dan being over the hill, Chen Long still struggling to regain his form of yesteryear as well as in his twilight years at age 29 , and Shi Yuqi not reliable enough and not fully ready to take over the mantle from Lin Dan and Chen Long, and the only other possible bright, young prospect, 21-year-old Lu Guangzu, still quite some way to go before we are convinced he has what it takes to break out into the top echelon of world-class players. On the whole CHN MS do have successorship problems.