How did he do it?

[Byro-Nenium]

Pulella Gopichand put up an amazing performance to take a suprise victory at the Yonex All England in Birmingham. How did he do it? What exactly was it in his game that led him to victory. Defeating Olympians such as Gade, Xia, Ji and Hendrawan.

Good luck for Gopi? Bad luck for others?

Or what was it that Gopi did in England that he never did before?

thanx for all replies

[May]

I don't know abt other matches, but I know that Gade's form is terrible.

[Yudhi]

It is the same case as when Ji Xinpeng won the Olympic gold medal.
Everybody did not expect him to go that far as he was quite new at that time.
The first victim was Hidayat then P.Gade and lastly Hendrawan.

Wht do you think about that????

[Wins]

From Gade's performance, we can see that he is not very concentrate on his match and is lazy kind of look. The question is why ??? He fallen out of love ??? But wat i think is that he is giving chance as he is more concern abt the THOMAS Cup so if he win now, P. Gopichand will feel very angry which is the same for his coach. If this happen, Gopichand will train harder to win him but if he let Gopichand win, Gopichand will look down on him and will lighten his fear for Peter Gade as he is the world champ. When his fear is lighten, Gopichand will not train or work that hard. And with this tactics, he will be able to figure out Pullela Gopichand's weaken and strong points. But even what, P.Gopichand is definitely good at deceiving shots, net shots and dropshots. As u can see that china and denmark players are good at smashes and uses it almost all the time but smash take longer time to recover esp when ur opponent do a drop or net. But i find out p.Gopichand weakness, he is weak at drives as u can see that Chen Hong try to fool him with it. But P.Gopichand lead Chen Hong near the single side lines leading him to hit out.

[Byro-Nenium]

If you ask me, i disagree on the Gade not concentrating. He definately was. The only reason why he couldn't play the way he normally would was because he wasn't allowed to. Gopichand used deception so Gade literally was being jerked around the court.

[May]

I agree with u.

[Byro-Nenium]

Not sure how he beat Gade but Hidayat i think, at that time was under some pressure from the PBSI. The Hendrawan/Xia/Ji discussion has gone on before. Why Xia mostly loses to Hendrawan but beats Ji. Ji beats Hendrawan but loses to Xia. Hendrawan beats Xia but loses to Ji.

If you ask me, its the different styles in which they play.

[Wins]

It's true. different style affect so i think i am going to change my view on badminton as i use to believe that if u smash good u r the best but now i think that i am going to train myself into my deceiving, cunning and defensive play. As defensive play dun take much strengh but fast reaction good thinking. As smashing take longer time to recover, it affect a player. It will made u run around if ur opponent has good defend.

[Sing]

As some of you mentioned ,to win you must peak

and hit form so that you can play well.Other than

increasing your skills, one must also be able to read

opponents game well so as to ambush them, be patient

in some situations , cut down on errors sometimes and

concentrate.

[Byro-Nenium]

I just had an experience of this yesterday. I noticed that my opponent was targeting my drop shots coz my net play is very poor. My game is mainly power and accuracy around the lines. I can play very few good net shots in a game. Now that i come to think of it, i should have lunged forward and smacked the shuttle down. But during the game, i didn't even think of it.

Sometimes during a game, you don't realise things that you could easily point out by watching a replay. Sometimes fatigue really makes you desperate and that adds to frustration and desperation of shots..... later!

[Sing]

You may have learnt something already

from the badminton school of hard knocks.

[viver]

Gade mentioned somewhere about the shuttles speed. They were a little bit slower and this would be advantageous for placement rather than smashes. This could be one of the reasons why Gade lost to Gopichand.
Another thing, playing deceptive style requires a lot of anticipation and energy. To be sucessful in this style of play you need to be very very quick. Read a thread by Takumi about singles service returns.

[cooler]

i think gopi win in 2001 all england was impressive but it takes more than that before i would recognize him comparable to other top ranking players. I hope that he's not flash in the pan. I remember Liu Jun of china won the 1992 (?) all england men singles but i dont hear or see him after that.

[Sing]

Do you really think Liu Jun won 92 All England

on merit or was he helped?

[cooler]

I can't see how someone can help liu jun in men singles. Like gopi, liu jun was a relatively unknown to the tournament circuit and maybe caught the regular seeded players off guard of his different style, just like gopi case. When liu jun came to canada to play the canadian open in 1992, he was quite terrible, beaten by a unknown young korean in just two games. Liu made so many unforce errors.

[Sing]

If you watched the 92 final between him and Zhao somebody,

you may notice one of the players wasn't playing seriosly,

more like bozo.Liu had to win because if he didn't he would

not have qualified for 92 Olympics.Not good to have an event

dominated by one country.I am still a fan of Zhao somebody

and can assure you that none of his predecessors except

Sun Jun can even get near him on court.

[viver]

Yes there were suspicions about the '92 All England finals not being played fairly. Many said that Zhao threw the match in favour of Liu so he could earn enough points to get into the Olympics. But some credit has to be given to Liu Jun to make into the finals though he was not the kind of player we would expect coming out from China.

On the other hand and just my opinion, Dong Jiong and Sun Jun are not the in the same level as Zhao Jinhua, Yang Yang and other older players. Technically they are not as good but Sun Jun has the determination and tactical inteligence that made him to the top.