Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong reigned supreme over blended doubles for greater than two years however can they arrive again and add Tokyo Olympic gold to their title trove?
By Don Hearn. Pictures: Badmintonphoto
Combined doubles is lastly going to see its world #1 again on court docket after a protracted pandemic-induced hiatus. Combined will not be alone on this, after all, however Gideon/Sukamuljo at the least entered some match previously 12 months and so they even performed a match earlier than the Indonesian crew was compelled out of the All England earlier this 12 months. And it’s been virtually the identical story for Kento Momota in males’s singles.
Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong (pictured high) are the one world #1 whose pre-pandemic dominance of their occasion can compete with the lads’s singles and doubles stars. They might have let the 2020 All England elude their grasp however they’d gained the primary two Tremendous 500 occasions in 2020 after a 2019 after they gained their second World Championship, in addition to the World Tour Finals and all three Tremendous 1000 titles.
Since final 12 months’s hurrah in Birmingham, although, the Chinese language aces have been out of sight, out of thoughts – each Zheng/Huang and their world #3 compatriots Wang Yilyu / Huang Dongping (pictured above). The Olympic blended doubles gold has solely been gained by a top-seeded pair as soon as, in 2012, however had the Video games gone on as deliberate in the summertime of 2020, all would have been anticipating that quantity to duly double.
However provided that all the high pairs on the earth have needed to put together largely in silo circumstances, like by no means earlier than, for these Olympics, if they’ve at the least been in a position to spar with their very own nationwide crew, it’s arduous to think about anybody who might preserve Zheng/Huang as sharp as their team-mates, and vice-versa for that matter.
Selecting up the place they left off
Apparently, Zheng Siwei and Huang Yaqiong will begin in Tokyo the place their path ended final March. There is just one pair at these Olympics that the Chinese language have by no means overwhelmed and that’s who was drawn of their group. Selena Piek and Robin Tabeling (pictured above) of the Netherlands ousted Zheng/Huang from their final All England and they are going to be hoping to repeat that feat. Additionally within the group are Korea’s Web optimization Seung Jae / Chae Yoo Jung, the best ranked pair that has by no means as soon as overwhelmed the top-seeded Chinese language duo.
Nonetheless in response to plan?
Hitherto, blended doubles has been by far probably the most predictable on the Olympic group levels. In each 2012 and 2016 – the one two editions that started with a spherical robin stage – the anticipated quarter-finalists emerged, with only a single European exception in every case. Fuchs/Michels and Mateusiak/Zieba respectively beat out two higher-ranked European pairs to advance to the ultimate 8 however each did not advance to the semis.
There may be not fairly the focus of European expertise on this 12 months’s Video games to provide an equivalent outcome however two teams will definitely be attention-grabbing to look at. The closest will doubtless be Group D. Wang/Huang are undefeated in opposition to so many pairs on this match and but two pairs they’ve had hassle with previously are drawn collectively in the identical quartet, all vying for 2 out there spots within the quarters.
Germany’s Mark Lamsfuss / Isabel Herttrich have but to beat any of the three pairs however after their Denmark Open win final 12 months, they’ve extra confidence now than they’d the final time they encountered any of these opponents.
Group B can be made attention-grabbing by the current type of France’s Thom Gicquel / Delphine Delrue (pictured above). The Europeans beat world #2 Dechapol Puavaranukroh / Sapsiree Taerattanachai early final 12 months and so they have a very completely different bearing from what they dropped at their final encounter with Britain’s Ellis/Smith, on the 2019 European Video games.
The enterprise finish
Whatever the hiccups on the group stage, the knockout spherical is prone to function all the high contenders. The query is who has what it takes to take down the mighty Chinese language?
Praveen Jordan and Melati Daeva Oktavianti (pictured left) have proven that they aren’t afraid of going two-to-two with the large hitters Zheng and Wang, and never solely as a result of Jordan is among the few gamers who’s able to out-hitting the opposite two. There’s quite a bit to be stated for a pair that may get the higher of the most effective as soon as it will get to the ultimate stage and residential favourites Yuta Watanabe and Arisa Higashino have accomplished that, after they beat Zheng/Huang to win the primary of their two All England titles.
2nd-seeded Dechapol Puavaranukroh / Sapsiree Taerattanachai (pictured proper) can not assist however be brimming with confidence after their run of three titles in three weeks in Bangkok final 12 months. The questions stay as as to whether they are going to be capable to take that present on the highway and whether or not the momentum will survive even as soon as now we have added again into the event the highest pairs fro China and Japan, all 3 of whom have been absent from the Thai trio of tournaments in January. The Thais and the Japanese are additionally the pairs most in a position to improvise in key matches, with Taerattanachai and Higashino each so able to masking the backcourt so comfortably.
Korea’s Web optimization Seung Jae and Chae Yoo Jung are additionally very harmful however they’re both scorching or they’re not and so they don’t appear to have the number of recreation kinds to fall again on. The Koreans have by no means overwhelmed both of the Chinese language pairs and it’ll solid a shadow on their Olympic marketing campaign in the event that they full the group stage nonetheless with out having gained their first recreation in opposition to Zheng and Huang.
Click on on the above desk to see a model with hyperlinks to detailed head-to-head outcomes. Cels shaded in inexperienced denote match-ups that can happen within the spherical robin stage.
