In the early hours of this morning in Beijing, the 2022 All England Open Badminton Championships came to an end. On the first All England stage of the new cycle, each item is brewing a new pattern. The champions aren't all new faces, but there are new changes everywhere in the game.
A new landscape in flux
Acelon reached the top in all england for the second time, and Akane Yamaguchi won the championship for the first time, both of them have an advantage in terms of form and strength. The leaders in the men's singles and women's singles fields are still the first-line players, but the newcomers behind them are already eager to try. In the final, standing opposite Acesaron and Akane Yamaguchi are all "post-00s" players, one is Lakshya, who represents the highest level of the current seven Indian men's singles, and the other is Ahn, who has won the finals and entered the top four in the world rankings.
Lakshya and Ann have similar characteristics - they are young and old, they can master the rhythm, and their bodies need to be trained a little stronger. In the final, they all showed their respective disadvantages in front of the strong hands, which were all entitled to tuition. In singles with a longer growth cycle, the only people who can stir up trouble at this stage are the new people who have already emerged in the first-tier competitions.
Doubles are different, and it's not entirely rare for a combination like Fikri/Maulana to achieve a dash. Their previous best result was only the super 100 championship, and now they have won the championship against the three-way combination of "Minion", "Little Nanny" and "Hengshan" in a row, directly adding a 0 after 100. Six pairs of Indonesian men's doubles competitions, the final almost won the final four, the championship is still a new face, they are not only continuing to build a group advantage, but also in the new cycle to intensify the competition within the team.
Also emerging was the women's doubles, with Chiyo Shida / Naa Matsuyama fending off the Near-Fall Japanese Women's Doubles at an opportune point in time. This time, the women's doubles quarterfinals have not won the all-English championship, and the daughter of Indian head coach Gobi Chand has already launched an impact on the final, such a pattern was never expected before the game.
As for the mixed doubles, the most difficult to adapt to is that the time point of the "IELTS" and "Yellow Duck" division is not the final, but the semi-final. What has not changed is that the championship group is still the top few pairs.
"Transfer students" are in the process of adaptation
If the participation of the national feather in the Danish Open last October was the "gift" after the Toyo Cup, then the European competition since the beginning of spring is the real return of the national feather to the World Tour since the outbreak of the epidemic. In many of the previous two years of open tournaments, there was no national feather, and this time, we came back.
In the first leg of his return, Guoyu reached four finals in Germany and won 2 gold and 3 silver; the next week, at the All England Tournament, Guoyu's performance fell back from last week and won two runners-up. For the "transfer student" who suddenly returned to the Open, everything is still adapting. How to play in the Open consecutively, how to adjust in the game, the last time they encountered such a proposition was exactly two and a half years ago.
Winter training has reserved strength, returned to the tour, and everyone wants to play and show it. After a good start in Germany, after the excitement of the higher level of the All England, some of the adjustment problems that have not been experienced for a long time have appeared, which is worth summarizing. However, we also see hope from new combinations like Zheng Yu/Zhang Shuxian. They played three pairs of South Koreans in Selenk, Germany, two pairs of seeded teams in the All England tournament, and reached the final in the second leg of the pairing. From the final alone, the result is regrettable, but from the whole race, the whole process is enough to surprise. Just like the phrase "you can just lose if you are not in a bad state", in the case of bad form, we can still see players on the field looking for ways to deal with difficulties.
Jia Yifan said in the interval that "I am trying to grab a few shots in front of the net", "Yellow Duck" in front of the state of the "Dongdu" performance is not inferior to the other party, in the face of difficulties, they through more shots, through active mobilization of themselves to compete with time to win opportunities, game out of the opportunity to score another point. Winning or losing determines the result, but success or failure is not only in the result, but also in the process of struggle.
This week, the Swiss Open will continue, and I hope that the national feathers will adjust to the state and meet another challenge.
The final of the All England Open
Men's Singles: Arcelor (Denmark) 21-10 21-15 Lakshya (India)
Women's Singles: Akane Yamaguchi (Japan) 21-15 21-15 Ahn (Korea)
Men's Doubles: Fikri / Maurana (Indonesia) 21-19 21-13 Asan / Hendra (Indonesia)
Women's Doubles: Chiyo Shida / Nao Matsuyama (JP) 21-13 21-9 Zheng Yu / Zhang Shuxian (CHP)
Mixed Doubles: Watanabe Isatsu / Higashino Yusa (Japan) 21-19 Wang Yilu / Huang Dongping (China)