Good effort.. ..from Maria Kristin. Losing in the Finals, esp. against one of the top WS players in the world and after going multiple rubber-set matches, was not bad at all...Hope she can build more upon this accomplishment. Off topic: Only 3 out of so many BCers commented on that. Also, i wouldn't be surprised if all of them are of Asian/Chinese origin; as for their locations, i think it shouldn't be used as a point of argument, per say. Anyway, no biggie...
When against offensive players she gave tough fight. She ever beat Lu Lan, Zhang Ning, Zhou Mi, Yao Jie, Pi HY also almost beat Tine Rasmussen in SC. She still got problems against best defensive players, lost twice to Xu Huaiwen and lost eaily to WMC. I think she and her coach take attention of this case.
I was just being realistic... In addition to all the matches I saw this week, I also remember her match against XXF one month ago. The chances of Maria getting a gold is improbable...
Gold is bombastic target as we know there're top-two contenders who have great achievement so far, XXF and Tine Rasmussen.
I once saw a cartoon somewhere (perhaps Gary Larsen's The Far Side) where a mob is carrying off this guy in "triumph" shouting, "We're number 3, we're number 3..." You comment kinda reminded me of that
Maria played realllly well. She dared herself to push her stamina at max. "Gotta dare to be worn out when meeting a Chinese player," she said when she just won over ZM and asked about her strategy to meet with ZN. In the final, ZL actually had run out her breath totally in the second set. She was all pale and asking too much "time delays" in between points -- she finally got a yellow card for this. Her face was all sweaty like rain! MK's ball positioning was definitely awesome. She pushed ZL to move around to all points on the court. But too bad for MK, her injury made the knee unable to hold her body, thus, she did a lot of splits instead of running in steps. "I was tired, but not exhausted or worn out," she said. "It's the knee [injury] that held me back from moving around." Looks like the special 'stamina training menu' for MK did well. Her stamina improved a lot compared to INA Open last year. But too bad her injury kept her from doing the best performance yesterday. "In previous matches, I could still hold my body with my thigh, but today my thigh was already tired too," she added. She even said that she was optimistic towards the Olympics although she did mention she needs to work out her feet [injury]. All of the above I heard during her interview after the match
Better footwork??.. ...perhaps her knee/feet injury could be a result of her lack of footwork training/technique??..
Probably. She looked a bit 'slow' in movement (although most of the time she took the birdie with shrieks from the audiences who thought she wouldn't make it), but overall I saw her footwork is not bad. Many INA players get injury though - I hope that's not because of the wrong training menu at pelatnas... A bit OOT, I think Simon's FW is worse...he often got his feet strangled, and late in restoring his position; that really cost him a lot points for Sony.
Ha ha ha! Yes yes, we're number 3, we're number 3! Well, if I were Maria, I will be proud to deliver a Bronze in WS Badminton for my country... since Maria is ranked #34 last week... being number 3 in the biggest badminton event is an GREAT achievement! I'll cry when Maria does get on that Olympic podium... :crying: Note: you know that research have found that Olympic Bronze Medalists in sports that have knock out rounds are more often happier than the Silver Medalists... For example: Flandy-Eng Hian and Sony won their bronze by beating someone else. They knew the other option is getting no medal at all. So they jumped for joy when they won! Then... look at the Silver medalists... they looked very sad because they just lost the finals to Kim Dong Moon-Ha Tae Kwon and Taufik. They thought they could get gold, but they didn't.
Bronze for Maria...it is quite possible depending on the draw in the OG, furthermore she had improved a lot since the Uber Cup, she had the ability to stay in the game
And Maria said do not ask what medal she will get yet. Read interview with Maria in Jawapos. http://www.jawapos.co.id/sportivo/index.php?act=detail&nid=7280 Looks like she is a quick learner and she now has enough self-confidence.
I thought she will lost this time. Its true. But she had shown a very great game. I didn't regret watching her game from the start to the end. Tatsuya Himura http://badmintonathletes.blogspot.com/
