Allow me to post my reply to Devendra here from the AE'17 tournament thread for relevancy and continuation of discussion, if anybody wishes.
I think he is right.
Carolina Marin is the big match player who performs under pressure.
Any real champion must have the capability to withstand pressure, expectations, and close moments.
Lin Dan is the prime example of this.
In women's singles, since the time I have started watching the sport (around London Olympics), I can only say Carolina Marin as the person with true championship mentality.
Li Xuerui on the other hand, despite her remarkable skill, is perhaps the most brittle player I have seen.
After the Olympics, where she won as an underdog, she has not been able to last in any other big matches, where the pressure and expectations were on her.
G3 aside, He Bingjiao is the better player. But , on the whole,I still think she adopted the wrong strategy playing too aggressively and trying to finish off the rally quickly. It's very different from her creative attacking and deceptive game that she used to play. I strongly feel she should construct her rally more and not attack prematurely, combining the best of Wang Shixian's placement skills and Li Xuerui in attack mode as well as some of Wang Yihan's 'bulldozer' tactics. After narrowly losing G2, particularly at the crucial stage 19-17 when I thought she could've have won.
Perhaps Chen Jin wanted her to try and outattack Marin and she didn't quite get it right in G2, going for the lines and doing that little bit extra, leaving little to no room for error, and being a somewhat error-prone player, the mistakes flowed. In G3, I sensed she couldn't get over the narrow miss in G2, unable to put it behind her quickly, became agitated, ended up fighting herself more than her opponent and literally threw away the game. Let that painful lesson sink in and serves as an impetus to do better going forward.
IMHO, HBJ must strike a balance between ferocious attack and her naturally inclination to be creative and deceptive; in other words, don't rush, construct the rally and go for the attack as and when the opportunity presents itself with sudden injection of pace. Her mentality was affected by the strategy she adopted which I believed runs counter to her natural inclination.
At this stage, I don't see a mental frailty issue, more of loss of focus in the decider when she lost G2 by mishandling the crucial points at 19-17 up. If she had been more patient and construct the rally more, the pressure would be more on Marin to close the gap two points away from defeat, then the chances of He Bingjiao coming out on top in G2 to wrap up the match would be higher.
How HBJ's game unravelled in G3 was her own making. I have to admit mental toughness is Marin's strong point but I believe the 19-year-old He Bingjiao - she will turn 20 in Mar 21 - has the talents and ability to take on Marin, or any opponent for that matter, and all she needs is more exposure and gain more experience. As she matures in the years to come,growing up and understanding herself better, we should likely see her ascend the summit. We'll see.
Li Xuerui's case is most unfortunate, I doubt it'll be repeated in He Bingjiao's case, she seems to me a different character from LXR. Call me an optimist if you like,it's my intuition speaking. Let the future tell.
Now I feel bad and apologetic towards her.
