On May 12, the Chinese men's badminton team lost 0-3 to Indonesia in the quarterfinals of the Thomas Cup, missing the round of 4. This is the worst result of the Chinese men's badminton team in 40 years.
Let's look at the results of the past three sessions, the Chinese team won the gold medal in 2018, the silver medal in 2020 (actually held in 2021), and the top 8 in 2022. Apparently, the Chinese men's badminton team fell off a cliff.
More regrettably than the ranking, in just three years, Chinese male feathers have lagged behind in all aspects.
First of all, the world rankings, our men's singles athletes participating in the Tang Cup this time, Weng Hongyang 54, Li Shifeng 50, Zhao Junpeng 38, Lu Guangzu 25. Although the world ranking is not necessarily a true embodiment of strength, but a look at the world ranking will know, what do we take to fight with others?
Worse than the world rankings is the backwardness of our tactical play. Badminton techniques and tactics have undergone earth-shaking changes in recent years, the unreasonable all-round offensive play is popular, and has basically occupied the men's singles position, and we are still advocating the backward pulling and hanging combined with offensive play. From this year's Soup Cup, we can see that in the face of strong enemies, Zhao Junpeng and Lu Guangzu only have the share of passive beatings; Li Shifeng wants to try to beat his own attack, but he always can't hit the side; Weng Hongyang, the only one who attacks well, does not know what reason to tie his hands and feet.
Worse than tactical backwardness is the on-the-spot guidance of our coaches. The on-site guidance problem of our men's singles coaches actually appeared in the final of the 2019 Sudirman Cup, in Shi Yuqi's match against Momota Kendou, Shi Yuqi changed his tactics in the second set to win after failing to hang in the first set. In this soup cup, the on-site guidance of the men's singles coach was very rarely exposed to the national audience, which was really a problem that the commentator and the audience repeatedly understood, and the coach and players did not wake up. This situation is something we haven't encountered in decades of watching badminton, and in the past we only had to watch lively games and never paid attention to whether there was a problem with the players' tactical play.
Even more desperate than the coach's on-site coaching is our selection of materials. If the game is lost, there are problems with on-the-spot guidance, but we have excellent reserve talents, but also let the fans see hope, however, look at our current national team of this gang, in addition to Weng Hongyang, Li Shifeng may still have a little development potential, who can find a promising material? And even Weng Hongyang and Li Shifeng, one 23 years old and one 22 years old, have just emerged. If we don't want to say too sharp and direct about other issues, this question can no longer be avoided - there are major problems in the selection of materials for the Chinese badminton team.
So is this a natural or man-made disaster? It's hard to say, I believe the fans have their own scale in their hearts.
May 12 is the anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake, and I hope that the Chinese men's badminton team, which suffered a fiasco on this day, will have a little shock in their hearts.