Another GER pair booted out Lee Yang and his partner in straight game. What tonic did they take, huh?
Arisa got a new partner, replacing Yuta Watanabe. No surprise, aside from All England SF, they haven't show any good results.
We have World Championships, Asian Championship, European Championships, mixed team championships for both Europe and Asia, Sudirman Cup, Thomas and Uber Cup plus GPG and SS all over the globe. Countless tournaments in which any national concerns may be satisfied. This season finale, however, should include the best players of the year, those that made the headlines by doing well in the BWF's biggest tournaments. In other words - the stars. Just ONE tournament in which only merit matters. Do you honestly think it would be good for the sport if - for example -Takamatsu aren't allowed to participate, being #1, Olympic Champions and 2 time SS champs, because pairs that have not even it made past the second round (! this is actually true !) the whole year are included by virtue of being born someplace else? That is significantly lowering the quality of the sport, depriving the tournament of some of its stars, making this whole "Destination Dubai" concept terribly rigged and robbing deserved players of their chance to compete for the highest price of the year, a chance they have deserved with performances. At the same time, the BWF fines the players if they don't participate in all the superseries tournaments. If there are 4 Japanese women's doubles and 4 Chinese mixed doubles, it's because they've earned it. For the spectators this means they'll get to see the very best at the end of the year: full on games between the top players, no qualifiers, no one-sided training matches, and all players actually have a decent chance of winning it. This quota is just sport politics to satisfy national vanities and it's detrimental to the players, the credibility of the BWF and the competitiveness of the sport.
And you can add to that merit only matters partially as only super series count. Instead of super series finals, they should just have season finals as in tennis and let all results count, including WC and GPP/GP. The only results I would consider excluding would be team events.
I looked through their results earlier and actually felt they were a bit unlucky in that they mostly have to play a top couple early on. Their results are actually mostly "as expected".
lets have a discussion over it if you not agree. it will be long, but okay first thing first, business strategy change over time depending on the condition at that particular time. the rules set for this was already almost 10 years ago and there is different condition already now. rules (business strategy) may change when othe thing has changed, in this case, the position of SSF as the 'showcase tournament of badminton'. Particularly, I was talking about samkool's point that bwf made a mistake (in terms of strategy to promote badminton). okay, then lets get back to year 2009/10. at that time, continental team tournaments are not available in Asia, only Europe, and who does really pay much attention to it anyway? the same goes to European individual championship. heck, even Asian championship is not seen as very important tournaments and seems that it only started after 2015 that Asian championship gained better position than other tournaments. World Championship, yes it is a big one, as well as with TUC and SC. However, an issue arise here (at least in the mind of BWF here). I see that BWF was basically try to imitate tennis as the more established sport with more money, and tennis does not have world championship while team events are not seen as that important. BWF Finals is seen as a tool that bridge tennis and badminton to the badminton newbies. Neverthelss, the idea of having only 8 selected players play in 1 tournaments is more compelling to these newbies than the world championship (they basically does not understand what does it mean to play and win WC). All in all, I can see that in BWF mind, this SSF is actually the one that they want to use as the portrait of badminton. Now we go to the condition in 2009. How many WS and WD, as well as MS that are not from China? I personally was not interested at all in giving a glance to WD at that period as China literally always win everything and often have 4 reps in SF. You mentioned that it is politics and is bad for athletes. Well the problem is badminton is strongly related to politics. Why? Because there is no enough money there (yet) to make it to be more commercial and more privatised. I am sorry but that is how it is. You specifically mentioned about TakaMatsu, but how about the case in 2008? This rule (and every rule) has their cost and benefit. At least looking the condition at 2010 with China dominating the scene, I still consider this as a benefit to BWF. The same goes to the politics part, which I think BWF still see that this rule is a benefit rather than a lost (as politics of national interest is more important than the athletes). I understand the athletes part is certainly set aside here, but sometimes has to sacrifice for the bigger to grow. The question is when the change should happen. In the end, strategy can still change when the condition changes. As you mentioned, now there is more tournament and more money already. Is it the time to change? I myself not sure. But is it the right move by bwf at 2009? I still think it is.
If you don't convert the "expected" to "upset" you stay where you are. Ain't gonna get a good draw untill your Rankings improve and they ain't gonna improve untill you clear your "tough R1s"
@Cheung ...Can you do a live commentary on Lin Dan vs Suppanyu match since it will be on Court 3 or 4 ?
Can someone tell me how serious was the injury off Busanan in the match against Pai Yu Po at the Bittburger Open in the begging of November?
Realistically speaking, how can Lin Dan do well here when for the whole of last week during the China Open (even before he lost in R1), he spent more time holding the microphone than the racquet ? (A rhetorical question)
