French Open 2023

Well done to the winners.

Jonathan Christie win is a surprise His 1st s750. Very well done beating Li Shi Feng from behind. He also beat Loh Kean Yew.

Li Shi Feng did well to beat LZJ who managed to avenge on WHY in the 1st round. Not easy beating 2 chinese. Viktor retired again. NTY is now 0 5 vs LSF.

Chen Yu Fei did well to beat the aging TTY. Danish MD got their amazing 6th title of the year.

VICTOR Denmark Open 2023

Well done to all the winners. This is a s750 event and there's a lot of money in it. Well done to Aaron Chia and Soh Wooi Yik for winning their 1st world tour title. After so so so long.... lol. Now the pressure is on LKY to win it. They need to thank the Indian pair for not playing.

Summaries below.

xd. Zheng and Huang did well to enter final and also managed to beat the world champion in semis 22 20 rubber game. Feng and Huang Dong Ping did better by winning the title. 26 24 rubber game. Very close.

wd. Chen and Jia did well to win it. Over powering the Japanese. I think only Korean can match them and they did not play.

ws. Sindhu did well to beat Tunjung. Marin did well to beat TTY. Aging. Marin did well again to beat Sindhu. Marin was great in mental game. However, Chen Yu Fei did well to beat Marin the the final. CYF beaten Marin in the last 3 meetings. ASY and Yamaguchi did not play.

ms. Viktor gave a walkover to LZJ. Lzj did well to beat Nishimoto and LCY.  Weng Hong Yang did well to beat Ginting and SYQ. He is on form and managed to beat lzj easily. He lost in 2nd round to Anton in the previous tournament. MS is wide open in Olympics with the exception of Viktor who seems to have injuries issues. Again, its victor's court. Shuttles also tends to be faster. 466kmh smash is crazy by lzj.

md. Fikri and Malauna did well to beat top seed Alfian and Ardianto.  Malaysian did well to beat denmark in semis. In the final, malaysia broke their jinx by winning the tournament. Well done.

Next tournament is s750 French Open.

CLASH OF CLANS Arctic Open 2023 (Finland)

This is a warm up tournament to the coming Denmark and French open. It is only a s500 event. Well done to all the 1st time winners.

Summaries.

xd. Only notable mention is the Malaysian pair beating the 2nd seed Dechapol and Sapsiree in 2 games. Then the Chinese took over.

wd. The topseed from Japan lost to China in semis. And they beat the Thai pair in the final.

ws. Tai Tzu Ying the top seed lost to Thai Chochuwong. And she lost to Han Yue from China in semis. Sindhu struggled against the Vietnamese in an epic battle. Sindhu almost lost in 2. Wang from China outlast Sindhu in semis. Han Yue won her 1st tournament.

md. Ahsan and Setiawan lost to Anders and Kim in semis. Danish also did well against Tpe pair. Teo and Ong was a dissappointment. Man and  Tee did well to enter final but lost to the Danish pair. Too experienced.

ms. Lzj continued with his fine form beating Chico in early rounds. Also beat Leong JH who was injured. He also managed to beat Antonsen in semis who was also injured. A little bit of luck is with him. Antonsen had a tough 3 setters vs Koki. Ng Tze Yong did well to brush the seeded CTC in 2 games. He also beat china Lu in 2 games to enter semis. NTY again beat Tsuneyama in semis. Quite credible wins. In the final, LZJ was in good form and managed to beat NTY easily. Head to Head is on lzj side. Next tournament is going to be a tough one in the 2nd round for both finalist. At least they got some precious qualifying points in this tournament.

Asian Games 2024 Badminton individual event. (Hangzhou)

From my opinion, this Asian Games is not a major event because it is not a worldwide event and it is not inclusive. We are talking about Denmark and the rest of the Europe teams are not involved. For an event to be considered MAJOR, it needs to be INCLUSIVE worldwide.

Congratulations to the 1st time winners.

Summaries.

1st round big match was between Lee Zii Jia vs Ng Kar Long. LZJ got his revenge this time 2 1.

In 2nd round Chou Tien Chen sent defending champion Jojo packing with 2 0. Jojo seems to have the luck eventhough he is not on form. He managed to win HongKong Open and went into the Final of the Japan Open. Very lucky with the draw indeed.

Ng Tze Yong also beat Loh Kean Yew and it is a big loss from LKY considering NTY was recovering form sickness. Too many mistakes.

Round 16.

Lee Zii Jia seems to get his form back earlier than expected by beating the recent world champion Vitidsarn 2 1.

Tai Tzu Ying surprisingly lost to Ohori from Japan in ws.

Qtr finals.

Lee and Wang from Taiwan beat top seed Alfian and Ardian again.

Lzj vs Pranoy was very exciting because Lzj got 2 match points and he did not convert. Pranoy's back was troubling him a lot and Lzj did not manage to finish him off. However, given the intensity of the match, it seems that Lzj is back in form. At least the point was respectable.

Li Shi Feng seems to be in good form beating Ginting 2 0.

Naraoka beat NTY 2 0.

The epic match was between Aaron/Soh vs China twin towers. The match was very close and had many rallies. Malaysia won in this epic battle.

Semi finals.

India did well to dispose Malaysia 2 0. Probably Malaysia was too tired.

The Korean md pair Choi and Kim did well to beat Taiwan 2 0.

Li sf beat the tired Pranoy easily.

Finals.

China xd did well to retain the title vs Japan.

wd, China did well to retain their title vs Koreans.

md. India did well to beat the Koreans in the final.

ms. Lsf did well to beat SYQ in the final.

ws, It was an epic battle because ASY was having knee problem after winning g1. CYF managed to win g2. And in g3, cyf herself got into trouble with her fitness and she lost. ASY is truly remarkable player and she will be the clear title winner in OG if she is healthy. Unless Yamaguchi regains her form and fitness. 

The rest of the events are wide open.😎

Asian Games 2024 Badminton team event.

This event was held in HangZhou, China. Well done to the winners.

Summaries.

Mens event.

Malaysia met Korea in the 1st round. The biggest surprise was that both the mens singles from Malaysia lost to the Koreans who are ranked much lower.

Aaron and Soh salvaged 1 point for Malaysia. They are the most consistent player at the moment for Malaysia. They managed to enter at least qtr finals in most events.

HongKong beat Thailand 3 2. Japan beat Singapore 3 0. Lky lost again.

Surprisingly, Korea again beat Indonesia in quarterfinals. Jojo lost and Ginting won.

In semifinals, India beat Korea 3 2. China beat Japan 3 1.

For finals, China escaped because Pranoy was injured. China managed to make a comeback from behind to win 3 2. Sen beat SYQ in 1st sgl.

Ladies event

China beat Japan 3 1 in semifinals and Korea beat Thailand 3 1. Yamaguchi was injured and did not play.

Korea did very well in the final beating China 3 0. A total humiliation on the host team.

 

Hong Kong Open 2023

Congratulations to the winners. Indonesia win it big this time with 2 titles. This is only a S500 event which is much smaller than the previous China Open S1000. Also many top 10 players did not participate because they are preparing for the coming Asian Games.

Summary below.

xd. China pair won it by beating the local Hong Kong pair. The Hong Kong pair beat the red hot french pair who were in the finals last week in China. They were the only unknown faces.

wd. Malaysia Pearly and Thinaah did well to upset the Thai pair to enter final. Unfortunately the blew up their chances of winning the final where they won g1 easily and almost won g2. Indonesia Apriani and Siti did well with their experience and firepower to claw back and win the match. 

ws. Tunjung did well to dispose Marin. Ratchanok gave a wo to GJW. Goh Jin Wei did well to beat the Chinese player. Yamaguchi stopped Tunjung this time and GJW lost to Zhang Yi Man in the semis. This final was won by Yamaguchi again. I wonder if Yama can catch up with the red hot ASY in the Olympics. She will need to double her effort.

md. Again, the top seed Alfian lost to Tpe pair in the 2nd round. Kim and Anders did well to enter final. Seems to be in good form. They also beat Ahsan and Setiawan in semis. Leo and Daniel did well to beat the Tpe pair in semis. In the final, the Danish pair continued with their great form to win it. More fire power.

ms. Jojo did well to beat local boy LCY in 2 games. He also beat Ng TY from Malaysia in 3 games. Ironic that Jojo have problem playing Viktor and LZJ and not the rest. Nishimoto did well to beat Ginting in 2 games. Ginting is still struggling from his mom passing recently. Jojo did well to beat Nishimoto in the final. 3 hard fought games. In the earlier rounds. Lee Chia Hao from Tpe did well to upset Viktor and also LZJ but lost to Jojo. Out of steam.

It seems that the Victor flooring mat is a little slippery. There is already a history. Complaints coming from Viktor himself and BWZ from USA. See picture below. The victor shuttles seems faster than the Yonex ones as well. You notice most players prefer to smash with fast shuttles. Victor will have to fix this.

Share it and see you in Asian Games 2023 in Hangzhou.

China Open 2023

Congratulations to the winners of this S1000 series. Especially to Seo and Chae and also ASY. They repeated the win and is now considered a legend in their category. Not easy to maintain the form. The final is a little anti climax because it is lop sided and kind of expected. The prize money is the biggest so far. See the image below. Vitid was a no show in this tournament. The dynamics could have changed. All top 15 ranking in ms got a chance to win any tournament. Luck of the draw can be a factor.

Summaries

xd. Zheng and Huang were the top seed but they lost to the World Champion Korean pair in semis.

Tan and Lai from Malaysia did very well to beat the top Thai pair in Qtr final but lost narrowly to the Koreans. 21 19 in the 1st set.

Toh and Chen from Malaysia also did well to enter semis buy lost to the surprising pair from France. Literally out of nowhere to enter final and lost to the Koreans WC. This Korean xd pair can be considered legends.

wd. wr no 1 Chen and Jia did well again to maintain their status as the best wd player.

ws. Tty did well to beat Marin in Qtr final 21 19 3rd game. Funny that she doesn't believe in Video analytics. No wonder she did not win the big events like wc and og. She lost to the solid An Se Young in semis.

Yamaguchi did well to beat the home girl CYF but she was not match for the eventual winner ASY. Looks like ASY is a very strong favourite to win the Olympic Gold. In terms of fitness and stability, no one can match her at the moment.

md. Again, Alfian and Ardianto is the victim of the danish MD pair in the 1st round this time. They have been struggling about 3 tournaments back. However, the danish pair lost to Hoki and Kobayashi in the qtr final. Lee and Wang the OG champ lost narrowly to the WC pair.  It was a very exciting encounter. Any pair could have won it. Deuce.

Liang and Wang did well to beat the Japanese top pair in a close rubber game in semis.

Aaron and Soh did well to beat compatriot Teo and Ong in the qtr final. They also did well to beat the WC Kang and Seo. I guess the prize money is good enough even if they don't win any tournament.

In the final, it was a white wash by the chinese md.

ms.  Loh Kean Yew did well to get his revenge on Popov and Antonsen this time but lost to Viktor in the qtr finals. In game 2 lky got the chance to make a comeback at 17 17 but gave it away by making some silly mistakes. Out of gas perhaps after the 1st tough narrow set. Antonsen earlier had a tough match vs Sen from India.

NTY from Malaysia did well to beat Pranoy, but eventually lost to Shesar from Indonesia. This kid can't last after having a tough match. Jojo did well to beat Shesar but he was no match for Viktor in Semis.

SYQ did well to beat Gemke and Naraoka in a thrilling 3 setter in the Qtr final. 22 20. Lu GZ did well to beat the tired SYQ in semis and also LSF in the earlier round. Earlier LZJ had a tough one vs Naraoka. If he won game 1, he could have won the match. He punctured on the 3rd game.

In the final, it was Viktor's day. A walk in the park. Enjoy the images below and share my link. Thanks for coming.