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Post by CAI BIN MUST GO on Dec 24, 2020 19:07:25 GMT -5
While at the Gold Lounge, Li Yingying screams "I'm feeling very attacked!" Is Zheng Yixin still around?Yes, her club Fujian is weak so they didn't make it far this season. NT wise she's always around, but doesn't stay too long. Which is unfortunate because she's quick in attack, can run the slide well, play back row defense, receive, and serve consistently. When it comes to going up against the likes of Italy with Egonu and Serbia with Boskovic Lang Ping is going to want a middle that can slow the ball down and get touches, something she has a hard time doing due to her height. It's a shame she's not 2 or 3 inches taller. Then she'd be a lock-in for the NT for sure.
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Post by alohavball on Dec 24, 2020 19:27:52 GMT -5
Yes, her club Fujian is weak so they didn't make it far this season. NT wise she's always around, but doesn't stay too long. Which is unfortunate because she's quick in attack, can run the slide well, play back row defense, receive, and serve consistently. When it comes to going up against the likes of Italy with Egonu and Serbia with Boskovic Lang Ping is going to want a middle that can slow the ball down and get touches, something she has a hard time doing due to her height. It's a shame she's not 2 or 3 inches taller. Then she'd be a lock-in for the NT for sure. I agree. She's a comprehensive middle despite her height, any team in the league would love to have her. Wang Yuanyuan looks good because she has the height. On top of that, middles are more so focused on Zhu and Li in Tianjin which leaves an opening for Wang. Her performance in the finals was meh to me so I'm not sure if she's still locked at this point.
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Post by CAI BIN MUST GO on Dec 24, 2020 19:31:14 GMT -5
It's a shame she's not 2 or 3 inches taller. Then she'd be a lock-in for the NT for sure. I agree. She's a comprehensive middle despite her height, any team in the league would love to have her. Wang Yuanyuan looks good because she has the height. On top of that, middles are more so focused on Zhu and Li in Tianjin which leaves an opening for Wang. Her performance in the finals was meh to me so I'm not sure if she's still locked at this point. I'm not sure what happened to the whole Tianjin team in the finals. They didn't look like they were there to compete.
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Post by reformate on Dec 24, 2020 21:09:46 GMT -5
Yes, her club Fujian is weak so they didn't make it far this season. NT wise she's always around, but doesn't stay too long. Which is unfortunate because she's quick in attack, can run the slide well, play back row defense, receive, and serve consistently. When it comes to going up against the likes of Italy with Egonu and Serbia with Boskovic Lang Ping is going to want a middle that can slow the ball down and get touches, something she has a hard time doing due to her height. It's a shame she's not 2 or 3 inches taller. Then she'd be a lock-in for the NT for sure. To be honest, I didn't notice how short she is until you guys pointed it out. She's a fabulous MB.
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Post by CAI BIN MUST GO on Dec 24, 2020 21:20:56 GMT -5
It's a shame she's not 2 or 3 inches taller. Then she'd be a lock-in for the NT for sure. To be honest, I didn't notice how short she is until you guys pointed it out. She's a fabulous MB. she used to play beach (as did Yan Ni and Zhang Changning)
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Post by CAI BIN MUST GO on Dec 30, 2020 14:30:05 GMT -5
Well, Diao (the setter who got injured) is on the NT training camp roster which starts on Jan 17, so looks like maybe her injury is not as bad as we thought.
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Post by alohavball on Dec 30, 2020 19:37:27 GMT -5
Well, Diao (the setter who got injured) is on the NT training camp roster which starts on Jan 17, so looks like maybe her injury is not as bad as we thought. Roster S: Ding Xia, Yao Di, Diao Linyu OPP: Gong Xiangyu, Liu Yanhan, Li Yao OH: Zhu Ting, Zhang Changning, Li Yingying, Liu Xiaotong MB: Yan Ni, Yuan Xinyue, Wang Yuanyuan, Yang Hanyu, Hu Mingyuan, Gao Yi L: Wang Mengjie, Lin Li, Ni Feifan Not much different than last year. Li Yao (Guangdong) is the only new name and Gao Yi returned to the A team after being bumped down to the B/C teams the last couple of years. Previous names that didn't make the list are Zeng Chunlei and Zheng Yixin. I think we all knew and even Zeng CH herself knew that it would be hard for her to find a spot on the team with her level dropping. Even though she doesn't have the size I kind of wish Zheng YX was there to add more depth. What she lacks in height she makes up by being comprehensive in other areas that the remaining middles struggles with. Glad to see Ni Feifan there after her performance this season. With Liu Xiaotong's current state I'm surprised they didn't bring another outside hitter to test out.
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Post by CAI BIN MUST GO on Dec 30, 2020 19:50:37 GMT -5
Well, Diao (the setter who got injured) is on the NT training camp roster which starts on Jan 17, so looks like maybe her injury is not as bad as we thought. Roster S: Ding Xia, Yao Di, Diao Linyu OPP: Gong Xiangyu, Liu Yanhan, Li Yao OH: Zhu Ting, Zhang Changning, Li Yingying, Liu Xiaotong MB: Yan Ni, Yuan Xinyue, Wang Yuanyuan, Yang Hanyu, Hu Mingyuan, Gao Yi L: Wang Mengjie, Lin Li, Ni Feifan Not much different than last year. Li Yao (Guangdong) is the only new name and Gao Yi returned to the A team after being bumped down to the B/C teams the last couple of years. Previous names that didn't make the list are Zeng Chunlei and Zheng Yixin. I think we all knew and even Zeng CH herself knew that it would be hard for her to find a spot on the team with her level dropping. Even though she doesn't have the size I kind of wish Zheng YX was there to add more depth. What she lacks in height she makes up by being comprehensive in other areas that the remaining middles struggles with. Glad to see Ni Feifan there after her performance this season. With Liu Xiaotong's current state I'm surprised they didn't bring another outside hitter to test out. I am shocked they decided to call Gao Yi back after ignoring her from 2018-2020. I'm also surprised that there aren't more OH's being considered, but in theory both Liu Yanhan and Li Yao have played and can play as a non-receiving OH. Kind of surprised there aren't more setters...
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Post by reformate on Dec 30, 2020 20:46:08 GMT -5
There's quite a big drop from the starter to the bench in the MB and SET positions, no?
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Post by CAI BIN MUST GO on Dec 30, 2020 20:54:13 GMT -5
There's quite a big drop from the starter to the bench in the MB and SET positions, no? Yes. OH and OPP as well.
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Post by reformate on Dec 31, 2020 1:18:42 GMT -5
I'm not too worried about the OH position, all three star OHs (Zhu, Zhang, Li) are young and can still play for years.
I haven't really seen Liu Yanhan play in the opposite position, so I don't know how huge the drop will be from Gong Xiangyu. Yang Fangxu is a notable omission - what happened to her?
There's a setter crisis not only in China but also in Serbia and Japan. I haven't been impressed with Yao Di, even after being given a lot of playing time. What happened to Shen Jingsi? She's not up there with Ding Xia but at least she can give the setter position a little bit of depth.
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Post by CAI BIN MUST GO on Dec 31, 2020 1:50:14 GMT -5
I'm not too worried about the OH position, all three star OHs (Zhu, Zhang, Li) are young and can still play for years. I haven't really seen Liu Yanhan play in the opposite position, so I don't know how huge the drop will be from Gong Xiangyu. Yang Fangxu is a notable omission - what happened to her? There's a setter crisis not only in China but also in Serbia and Japan. I haven't been impressed with Yao Di, even after being given a lot of playing time. What happened to Shen Jingsi? She's not up there with Ding Xia but at least she can give the setter position a little bit of depth. Yes, the OHs can play until Paris 2024. I'm not worried about Zhu and Li but Zhang seems more injury-prone and more family-focused (she may be married already but without ceremony; usually Chinese female athletes have their wedding ceremonies after retirement even if they already have documentation). Yang FX had some doping (EPO) problems (I don't want to go further into details), fortunately they were caught by internal testing before the Asian Games started in 2018 (otherwise it's an embarrassment even if the gold medal isn't retracted) and Yao Di went in her place. Then Diao Linyu choked vs. India (!) and this is why up until the league this year Yao Di was the backup setter instead of Diao. I don't think Liu Yanhan is that good and her floor defence is noticeably weaker compared to Gong... not a good thing when there's Zhu, Zhang, and Li on the outside. I'm not impressed with Yao Di this year either. For some reason, her connection with Zhu Ting got worse than last year.... wtf. But she also had some good performances in recent past; the double-sub vs Italy in 2019 VNL worked and she played the finals in Nanjing which went decently; the backup setter Diao never had a chance to come off the bench. But things may change in 2021; I preferred Diao's performance based on the league and assuming her ankle's ok I'd prefer she go to Tokyo. Shen Jingsi was cut from the team prior to Rio, since Wei Qiuyue was picked as the "stable" setter and Ding as the "imaginative" one. And then she gave up (and got married), probably because she was already a "World Champion" (In China, World Championships and World Cup have equal importance regarding athlete pension, benefits, etc) and I guess she thought there'd be new talent and couldn't make it to Tokyo. Well, she was dead wrong.... had she continued she would have been 2nd setter as a stable backup to Ding Xia.
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Post by CAI BIN MUST GO on Dec 31, 2020 1:52:18 GMT -5
I'm not too familiar with Japan, seems like they have so many players and it's hard to pick out the 6 "best" ones (including the setter; I can think of Sato, Tominaga, Miya%*$#a off the top of my head). I guess the structure is similar to the USA: there's no clear starting 7.
Serbia will have a drop once Maja retires. And I think she's like what, 36 already?
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Post by CAI BIN MUST GO on Dec 31, 2020 2:31:27 GMT -5
I'm not too worried about the OH position, all three star OHs (Zhu, Zhang, Li) are young and can still play for years. I haven't really seen Liu Yanhan play in the opposite position, so I don't know how huge the drop will be from Gong Xiangyu. Yang Fangxu is a notable omission - what happened to her? There's a setter crisis not only in China but also in Serbia and Japan. I haven't been impressed with Yao Di, even after being given a lot of playing time. What happened to Shen Jingsi? She's not up there with Ding Xia but at least she can give the setter position a little bit of depth. Just watched China-Brazil at the world cup again, when Yao Di came up in the end of the first set as a double-sub. Really bad sets to Zhu Ting..... but the connection with Yuan Xinyue is decent. How ironic....
edit: Brazil's defense is really good...
edit2: watched set 2, same double-sub again, Yao Di just killed Zhu Ting's attack. :/
Granted she has Zeng to work with instead of Gong as the opposite, but that's no excuse to set badly to pos 4
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Post by alohavball on Jan 1, 2021 13:21:42 GMT -5
Roster S: Ding Xia, Yao Di, Diao Linyu OPP: Gong Xiangyu, Liu Yanhan, Li Yao OH: Zhu Ting, Zhang Changning, Li Yingying, Liu Xiaotong MB: Yan Ni, Yuan Xinyue, Wang Yuanyuan, Yang Hanyu, Hu Mingyuan, Gao Yi L: Wang Mengjie, Lin Li, Ni Feifan Not much different than last year. Li Yao (Guangdong) is the only new name and Gao Yi returned to the A team after being bumped down to the B/C teams the last couple of years. Previous names that didn't make the list are Zeng Chunlei and Zheng Yixin. I think we all knew and even Zeng CH herself knew that it would be hard for her to find a spot on the team with her level dropping. Even though she doesn't have the size I kind of wish Zheng YX was there to add more depth. What she lacks in height she makes up by being comprehensive in other areas that the remaining middles struggles with. Glad to see Ni Feifan there after her performance this season. With Liu Xiaotong's current state I'm surprised they didn't bring another outside hitter to test out. I am shocked they decided to call Gao Yi back after ignoring her from 2018-2020. I'm also surprised that there aren't more OH's being considered, but in theory both Liu Yanhan and Li Yao have played and can play as a non-receiving OH. Kind of surprised there aren't more setters... Gao Yi returning will definitely add more competition to the size with Wang Yuanyuan and Yang Hanyu. I was hoping Yang Hanyu would develop into that last spot, but she's not there yet. They really should've had Xu Ruoya there. I feel like Liu Yanhan is better hitting from the left side than at the right (ex. VNL 2019 Final Round) and Li Yao is the opposite. I was surprised when I saw that the latter had made the list, she might only be there as a sparring partner for the team. I know both aren't known for amazing receiving skills receiving, but who would you say is better out of the two? Mei Xiaohan could've been there if Diao needed more time, but since she's on the list despite her injury Yao Di should be nervous.
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