Here is Tony Gunawan's assessment of his and Candra Wijaya's semi-final defeat against Koo and Tan. Mostly self-critical of his own performance. I like it, words from a true champion indeed .... My overwhelming respect for Tony has grown 100 X. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, March 17, 2007 The Worst Performance of My Life It is certainly painful when you lost a match; however, I couldn't find a word the describe my dissapointment in my own performance against Kien Kiat/Boon Heong. The match started equally due to unforced errors on both sides. Although Candra and I got two match points in the first game; we failed to close it. The second game went our way and we executed it nicely. Then came the third game when everything went wrong. It was just unacceptable for me to compeletly lose it and give away the game just like that. That was the worst performance in my entire badminton career. I've never performed that badly before, not even during my junior years. --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah, that was a terrible performance in third set. Every single thing went the Malaysians' way. When they were around 10 points down, they also apparently gave up. Very uncharacteristic. I don't think they minded losing that much, but not this way.
he is very dominant at the net. he play very well when in front of net. very deceptive too. do not give up. I support Tony.
hahaha, maybe it's age catching up with him. but yeah, tony's the consummate professional, i've never seen him kick up too much of a fuss even when frustrated, or when there were bad calls or anything of the sort. that's the sort of mental strength required at the highest level of sport, no matter what sport you play ...
of so many players i took picture with, he is the most friendly one. didn't show any arrogant and unwillingness look to u unlike some other players (don't want to mention the name here). he has the top skill and top personality as a top player. too bad, i still haven't got the chance to take picture with TBH/KKK
i agree. Tony Gunawan and Candra is the most friendly player. This is very true. I strongly support Tony Gunawan. My favourite since my schooling days.
hahaha, struggling is maybe a bit too harsh a word, consider their progress in the SS so far:- MO - runners up KO - semis AE - semis SO - semis after the rankings are updated, they'll be in the no.2 spot in the SS rankings table, so if they're struggling, everyone else (with the exception of KKK/TBH) must be .... ummmm .... drowning?
Tony does not practice with Candra often. They meet only during tournaments. They can be considered as very very good since they managed to get into semifinals consistently despite lack of training with each other.
very funny! why is TG so humble? lol anyway, it was REALLY his fault that they lost the match... he had 5 (i think) service errors.. which was very uncharacteristic of TG... when TG was down, CW carried the load and relentlessly attacked the malaysian pair, only to lose by a huge margin... TG said that if he given the chance to play in 2008 for INA again, and everything (papers) goes smoothly, he would resign from his job and train full time with CW... hope it does happen... another TG/CW and KKK/TBH would be exciting..
If tony gunawan goes into full time training, then, they will be very dominating again. Cannot imagine that. Tony can play better if he practices more.
No doubt, being 10 years older than your opponents in any sports have advantages and disadvatages. In Tony's case, it would speed and stamina are his disadvantages. In the case of the unforced errors he made in SO SF, I think, it was simply normal human mistakes... you can't win it all at all times... he realized it, that's the most important thing, he would make corrections and be back in form again the next tournament. I concur with you that Tony is one of the most highly regarded professional player in the recent history of badminton. He is cool! Go Tony!
One cannot 'wing it' these days with such top players like the Malaysians and Koreans. Practise is a must and if Gunawan and Candra don't have the time to do that, they might as well as give up the game or continue to play second fiddle to KKK-TBH.
ya i agree that TG is a true cham. wow i didnt know that they seldom practise. that is a good achievement considering that they dont train full time together. it will be great if he and CW can practise more often will make md more interesting i really respect them as they are good players with humble and nice personalities(hard to find people like that i think) hope they can be back with improvements i think they are one of the best pair
