Originally posted by wilfredlgf
My pick for 2004
WD
1. Gao/Huang - they are so pleasant to watch on the court, their smiles, who won't want them to win? That's probable one good reason why we like them so much apart from their obvious superiority in skills and understanding, no?
2. Zhao/Wei - second fiddle, again. They also look kinda serious... but if being serious wins you titles, then, no comments.
Dark horses : Ra/Lee
My good sir, where is Zhang/Yang on your WD list. The pair won 5 golds and 4 silvers on the year. Not a bad feat. I would place them 2nd but barely behind Gao/Huang.
Everybody's basically summed up all there's to say. Every discipline's going to have the usual suspects on the podium (really usual for WS and WD!).
However, in MS, I wouldn't place Lee HI up near the top. Sure, he's a good player and has won 3 tourneys this year, but they're all 3* and less. Aside from German Open, the rest of them didn't have a tough draw (relatively speaking). He's going to stay in the top 10 and perhaps in top 5 in rankings but that's solely because he makes some SF and QF appearances regularly. I'm not betting on him to win any GP above 3* this coming year.
I am hoping for Bao CL to climb back and win a few GPs like he last did in Denmark '02. He's actually been more consistent than Lin over the past 1.5 yrs. but just that Lin became superman all of a sudden during the past 2 months.