Chinese Women's Team

Does everyone get the feeling that it is not a very stressful job to manage/coach the Chinese women's team?

Yeah their women's team is more dominant but it's nothing new.
And I think that they will be more challenged in the next decade with other Asian teams like South Korea, Singapore or even Japan.
With Zhang Yining they are unbeatable  but once she retires I think it will be a little more difficult for them. Apart from Liu Shiwen I don't see who can become the next Zhang Yining . They probably counted on players like Li Xiaoxia or Guo yue to become as dominant as Zhang Yining but it has not happened and it probably won't happen. And the rest of their players like Ding Ning all seem a little "shaky" (well at least when compared with Zhang Yining ).

Also regarding their line-up for the final at these Asian Championships :

1) if they were so sure to win, they could have at least put Wu Yang!
 
2) It's true that Li Xiaoxia is higher ranked that the 2 other players and yet played as the 3rd player, but the thing is that Li Xiaoxia has had sh*tty results since the glue ban - so even though she is higher ranked than Ding Ning, right now the Chinese staff think that Ding Ning is better than Li Xiaoxia so it's no suprise that she played as the 3rd player

3) Fan Ying is ranked lower than Liu Shiwen etc and still played the final because they know that Feng Tianwei has had difficulties against choppers. It was a tactical choice, not a "we are so strong that we can let our lower ranked players play and still win". They made the same choice against South Korea : Fan Ying played instead of Ding Ning because this year Ding Ning has had bad results against choppers (she lost 3 or 4 times against Kim Kyung Ah)

4) Liu Shiwen did not play. TBH I don't know why but maybe it was a match-up reason, maybe she has already lost against Feng Tianwei ? Or she was not feeling well ? For example at the World Cup she lost against Jiang in the semi final so she was not picked to play the final . Anyway I think they were lucky that Feng Tianwei did not play that well because otherwise they might have regretted to have let Liu Shiwen on the bench.

Cyrilix wrote: 1) Liu Shiwen lost to Jiang Huajun at some point (I forget which competition), but then on the next, she destroyed her 4-0. 2) Ding Ning just played Kim Kyung Ah at ATTC and won. Surprising. I figured she would lose against choppers but she clinched the 7th set. 3) I don't think Ding Ning's record in the CTTSL is any better or much worse or much better than Li Xiaoxia's record (28-12 vs. 17-7). I'd put them close to the same level in topspin play, but Li Xiaoxia doesn't seem to have trouble with choppers. 4) Zhang Yining is an "impenetrable brick wall" like ITTF says, but the Chinese women's team are doing just fine without her. I haven't seen her play for a while, and they're still cleanly winning every single competition (pretty much). To be honest, at this point, having Zhang Yining play more often is just icing on the cake. When she plays it's automatic GG. Without her, at least there's the illusion of chance. That said, I think Feng Tianwei has a particularly good record against Zhang Yining, but not so much against the other fast attackers.

I think you misundertood my post.
I was just trying to explain why the Chinese picked this particular line-up (i.e not the higher ranked players) for the final. The thread starter made it sound like the Chinese picked the lower-ranked players on purpose because they knew that they would win anyway. Personally I think it was a tactical choice : even though these players are lower-ranked, they were a better choice for this particular match against Singapore.

So :

1) I have never said that Jiang Huajun is a better player than Liu Shiwen. I was just trying to find a potential explanation for her being on the bench for the final.

2) Yes I know that she just won against Kim Kyung Ah but then again I have never said that Kim Kyung Ah was a better player than Ding Ning so ?  Again it was just an example to explain why they don't always pick the higher-ranked players.

3) Yes I agree with you, their level are similar. But the thing is Li Xiaoxia has been slumping since the glue ban while Ding Ning is on the rise. If you read some Chinese articles you will see that Li Xiaoxia has been criticized a lot since the Chinese trials for the world's championships.

4) Yes I also agree with you on that point, even without Zhang Yining they are still going to win almost everything. They have been winning all the competitions since the world champs without her but IMO all these competitions (ittf pro tours etc) are not that important and given their depth the Chinese can send different players to each competition so obviously it is not surprising that they always win. At each competition the Chinese players are extremely motivated since they know that they have to do well to stay on the team ... whereas for players like Feng Tianwei or Kim Kyung Ah all the pro tours etc are just normal competitions and they are probably not as "hungry" as the Chinese to win ... and they are probably tired too. So IMO all these competitions do not mean much in terms of results. However important competitions like the world champs are an other story, all players are extremely motivated for these competitions, so we will what will happen at the next WC. If Zhang Yining does not play, if Guo Yue is injured, if Li Xiaoxia does not play well and Liu Shiwen/Ding Ning collapse mentally (because of too much pressure) the other teams like Singapore may have a chance

Misunderstood, you say? No misunderstandings here. I'm just commenting on your comments so treat them as any other generic comments. I never said that you made x comment for y purpose. I understand that the Chinese will try to optimize their line up -- I don't doubt it.

I agree with Shishi's reasoning on the team line-up.       Those choices are not random.

Feng Tianwei was eliminated in selection from national team B to team A, then she went to Japan, then to Singapore. I don't know why, someone said the reason is her heart disease.
You may think Liu ShiWen is better than Feng TianWei if you watch china TT super league matches.

IceObsession wrote: fortran2003 wrote: Feng Tianwei was eliminated in selection from national team B to team A, then she went to Japan, then to Singapore. I don't know why, someone said the reason is her heart disease. You may think Liu ShiWen is better than Feng TianWei if you watch china TT super league matches. Yes, Feng Tianwei had a medical record of heart disease. But she was an impressive player, she played for Singapore for only 3 years and she could beat Zhang Yining, Guo Yue, Li Xiaoxia and Guo Yan. She beat Li and Guo at the CTTSL.

Feng Tianwei has potential. She can beat anyone on a good day, as has been shown by her records. However, she doesn't seem to be able to consistently beat any of the top Chinese women. IIRC, she beat the top 3 in the CTTSL (at the time): Li Xiaoxia, Guo Yue, and Zhang Yining, and the announcers said that her performance was great, but she also lost a lot of games to lower ranked players: Li Xiaodan and Ding Ning, for instance. Her record was approximately 1:1 (1 win to 1 loss), which is decent, puts her squarely in the top 1/3 of players.

AJay wrote: Cyrilix:    There seems to be nothing on youtube for Deng Yaping, at least not TT matches per se.      However, there is an Olympic Final match on the Chinese bokett website. http://www.bokett.com/vdetail.asp?id=466 Ever wonder how come they couldn't kick around a 4' 11" woman?

in the early 90's there were not good players around in china ,deng in this 21th century wouldnt  have been that succesful,only qiao,liu wei were dangerous enough for deng and one player from hk and now there are  too many good female players now women play a more powerful style