Lin Dan Top Seed in China
The second Super Series event of the year for China begins this week, with the home support wanting another clean sweep of the medals in Shanghai. Those chances have received a massive boost with Peter Gade’s withdrawal from the event, meaning that the recently crowned Asian Games gold medalist Lin Dan will be the top seed at this week’s event (Seeded 2nd). He took the singles title in the first Chinese Super Series in September and starts his campaign this week against a qualifier. He will not be the only chance of success in the singles, with Chen Jin, Bao Chunlai and Chen Long all receiving seedings this week.
The women’s singles is a similar story, Wang Xin took the title in September and is seeded 1 for the event this week. However, there are 3 contenders from China who take up the remaining top 4 seeds with Wang Shixian, Jiang Yanjiao and the winner of the last two Super Series, Wang Yihan. There is also the forgotten woman of Chinese badminton, the 2009 World Champion Lu Lan is also in the draw this week and starts her campaign against the 8th seeded Ella Diehl of Russia.
The big draw for the home fans in the men’s doubles will undoubtably be the current world champions Cai and Fu, seeded 5th this week. The top seeds are the winners of the Denmark and France Super Series titles, Boe and Mogensen from Denmark. There is also the return of Lee Yong Dae to the Super Series after an injury layoff. Him and his partner Jung Jae Sung are the 4th seeds this week. Robert Blair’s involvement this week is the biggest surprise, after playing in the Scottish Open semi final on Saturday afternoon, he is expected to play this week with Flandy Limpele in the men’s doubles.
The 8 seeds from the women’s doubles don’t tell the whole story of this draw, with potential winners throughout the draw such as the winners in September, Wang and Yu being unseeded this week. Yu Yang has won 4 Super Series titles this year alone with two different partners and will be a contender this week also, even with their world ranking of just 51. Ma Jin is also in the draw with her partner Zhong Qianxin, who are currently ranked 89th in the world but are a much better partnership than that ranking suggests. The top seeds however are the looking for Super Series title number 1 of the year, Cheng and Chien of Chinese Taipei won the US Open in the summer but have no titles in the Super Series as yet.
The mixed doubles is a similar story to the women’s doubles, with proven Chinese doubles players experimenting with new partners and coming into the draw unseeded. The winners of the first Chinese Super Series event in September, Tian and Tao enter this week as an unseeded pair and could face a fascinating second round matchup against Yu Yang and Xu Chen due to the withdrawal of the 6th seeded Pedersen and Fischer Nielsen of Denmark. The top seeded Laybourn and Rytter Juhl have also pulled out, meaning that the Mateusiak/Zieba partnership are the highest seeded pair in the event, although they will have the massive task of defeating Ma Jin and He Hanbin in round 2 if the two pairs progress from their opening round matches.
Weird to see Lin Dan present and Lee Chong Wei plus Peter Gade both out with injury.
Is it their old back problems?
I think so, not certain at this point, but I do know that Gade was struggling at Denmark and French with his back.
Shame to see Gade playing well then having to pull out because of injury.
Lin Dan doesn’t pull out through injury, he just picks events! Only time he is ‘injured’ is when someone else needs qualifying points. Or am I just being cynical?
I’m sure there is some of that at times, but also the reality is even Lin Dan can’t win as often as he does unless he’s picking tournaments strategically so he can peak physically.
I think it’s probably more about him peaking mentally than physically.