Joaz Banbeck wrote:The cumulative odds of all of this happening are 3/5 * 8/13 * 7/11 * 2/3 * 5/7 * 4/5 = 6720/75075 or slightly less than 9 percent.
Ok, it could be random.
Well, since the same thing happened in the first round (15 non-Chinese players were paired in EVERY CASE with a Chinese player), I think Joaz must be right. The same analysis in the first round gives the probability of 17/31 * 16/29 * ... * 4/5 = 16384/17678835 or about 0.000927, or 0.09 percent. Very unlikely!
Also, it would be easy to do this in practice: just give one group of fans numbered 1 to 16 to the non-Chinese (plus one Chinese, who was actually fortunate since he didn't have to face a Korean player), and another group numbered 1 to 16 to the Chinese.






