Today I was just watching the National Championship at my city, and I was thinking to myself how I would play them. The conclusion is that the best approach is to get them off their rhythm by playing in a way they are not used to: for example lifting a lot to them and playing their rear courts. But even that has problems: because they are so fast even lifting can easily be intercepted by front partner or dominated by aggressive attacks. So I am just wondering what are some strategies or approach to take against stronger doubles pair (aside from just doing your best to train as much as you can so that you can beat them one day)?
Birdy, if they are one class above you, you can try and find their strengths and weaknesses and exploit it according to the arsenal of skills that you have. But, from the sound of how you're putting things, those players out class you by a lot. It is the worst possible thing to try and play lots of lifts to players who are faster and more powerful than you. You won't be able to get them off their rythm unless you're more skilled than they are. You said: "what are some strategies or approach to take against stronger doubles pair (aside from just doing your best to train as much as you can so that you can beat them one day)?" Badminton is about physique, technique, strategy, psychology. Think about it, in which part do you beat them? If you're not willing to invest time to train and beat them, don't think about beating them. Such thought is cheap. If you are at least able to cope with their speed and power to a certain extent, then don't let them play their best. Always try to counter and wreck their positions. If theyre attacking, play to the sidelines, stretch them from side to side and hope for an easy shot. Or if you're good enough and you think you can wear them out, then keep lifting it to them ofcourse and counter attack when they least expect it to try and score points. If you're attacking, and can pressure them doing so, find out each player's weakness, is it smash to the sidelines, down between them both, who has better smash returns, is one susceptible to body smash, does anyone give a weak return to the net when they're smashed at a certain point of their body, can you make them think you're smashing to the center or their body and get them into a position that makes a smash down to one side of the court harder to return? Juggle between smashing down the center and get a point, make them think you're aiming there and switch it up to smashes down the side lines. Are you able to jump, fake a smash and play a dropshot instead well enough to deceive them? Are their footwork bad enough to fall for it? Your smashes hard enough to make them tense which can cause delay in reacting to taking such deceptive dropshots. Are they bad at playing drives? What are their preferred replies when defending from a smash? If they can keep lifting your smashes, how can you play to get a flat shot instead that your partner infront can capitalize on? Or vice-versa. To be able to do the above though, and other kinds of strategy that I can't hope to list without writing a long essay, you need experience. And you will only get more and more experience the more you play. And the quality of experience you get depends on the quality of plays you do, which depends on your quality as a player, which will only improve when you train properly.
be a turtle be a bastion on your court which can not be emperored play everything back until they make a mistake strategy is everything and a good defence breaks down every opponents
Thanks for the response and long answer! It looks like experience and training will be key to beating players better than you. There is no best bet strategy against stronger players except by experience, training and learning how to exploit weaknesses.
This was my rational as well. I was thinking that since players better than you usually play opponents who are fast and on par, so if we play really slow they might not be used to it and start making lots of mistakes or psychologically not giving their all which enables a chance at winning. Do I play like this old guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reD_uHKjSjI ?
I think that the old man looks good for his age. However, if you want to be a bastion, I don't think you should copy the old man. He relies all too much on his partner (and this is most likely because he is after all older). I notice that he also tends to cling on to the net too much as well, as in he goes in for a kill and then basically stands still where he is. On top of that, he does not prepare his racket at all after he swings which puts him in a disadvantage should the shuttle return his way. Another thing I noticed is his defense. Either its his weakness or maybe it is just a bad habit, but when the shuttle comes toward his hip on the forehand side, he tends to take the shuttle right at the hip with a forehand grip (if you look at 8:06 in the video you'll understand what I mean). Another weakness here is that for some reason they stay in attack formation even on defense sometimes. Not sure what gives here though... Being a bastion is good and all, but unless you have perfect defense then I suggest you avoid it. Chances are that you will do mistakes or misses as well. The best thing to do when playing against better player is to try and play safer than usual. Play straights or into the middle, don't try any unnecessary trickshots, don't play net shots which of you are uncertain if you can control or not (just lift the shuttle instead) etc etc.
Indeed. The old man does play decent but he has so many weaknesses as you've highlighted. However, the interesting part about this game is that they actually won this set. Their opponents are pretty high ranks here. So I was wondering if the fact that the opponents were playing the old had an impact on them psychologically or that the way the old man played (playing slow) that affected the opponents psychologically. If so, then this game is support for the fact that obvious stronger opponents can be beat by less promising pairs through psychology or a way of playing? If not, then what is it about this pair that allowed them to take that set?
I definitely think there is a psychological side to it as well if you are playing against someone older. I'm saying this as I've experienced just the same thing. It was about 2 years ago I think and I met an old man in singles. He had decent technique and all but he's an old man, it shouldn't be a problem for me, or so I thought. I won, but it was a three set match. The reason? I underestimated him and overestimated myself which is definitely a mistake I haven't done since then.
when faced against pairs much better than me and my partner, i don't even plan to win... but i do tell my partner "hey, we can probably squeeze 10-15 points from them"... and then go from there... if you've played them before, like in my groups, then you already know their strengths and weaknesses relative to yours, so avoid their strengths while maximizing yours and attack their weaknesses while avoiding yours. eg. if you have better net play than them, then keep doing net plays eg. if they have killer smashes, then no lifts short of baseline and of course, concentrate your attack on the weaker partner...
mhmm, your experience and the video are clear support that psychology definitely plays a significant role in badminton even at high level playing. Now the question is how do we replicate these sort of psychological impact on opponents so that it can lead to higher chance of winning in matches.
When facing a stronger team, I tell my partner to relax and take every point possible. It doesn't matter even if it's a single digit score. Focus, keep calm and remain cool. Don't get into battles with them, be it net, smash or drives. Just keep varying the shots. Force both players into tactical error and use the chance to attack.
Not sure exactly how that would be possible though without actually having a player who is old on your team. I think the psychology in this case and the case you are referring to (better pair vs less skilled pair).
Oh yes, and keep unforced errors to the minimum. Don't attempt risky shots such as cross court shots if you aren't confident if the shuttle will get across or if the shuttle will go high and deep enough to prevent it from being killed.
The older player in the video actually is pretty good in the first 2-3 shots, i.e. his serve, his receive. Quite a few times, you can see he scored directly off his service return. And he presumably was threatening enough to force opponents to try too hard (to avoid easy interception at net) and got unforced errors. His partner was just awesome. He was playing almost like 2 against 1, taking a lot of the shots, offensively or defensively. I'm a little surprised, however, that their opponents didn't attack the older guy more when they're defending.
^ yeah, he has an excellent serve and service return... being tall helps and also being lefty, his opponents keep forgetting that fact and keep pushing to his forehand
One more thing I noticed, while we talking about the server's partner being blocked in view in another thread. Notice that the old guy is very tall. He chooses to server in a position visibly away from the T that most would do... Something to think about...
Good points! He's definitely no amateur, but I am really surprised too why the opponents don't defend to him or try to attack him more and make so many unforced errors. I've seen these two pairs played in real life and other videos and they play very aggressive and do battle cries. But here, they seem rather passive and soft for some reason.. Wonder how much of the result (this set being taken by the pair with the old man) is attributed to skills vs opponents just be psychologically affected.
i wanna see you play birdy please upload a video (i imagine a guy on court with glasses with a psychology oder strategy book in his rackethand, losing pretty much every point (obv. because the book in his hand ^^) while wondering why he always loses and trying to find the answer in his book just train hard and train regularely and train effective...psychology and tactics are so so minor and just irrelevant to simple playing and physical skills dude you use tactics and psychology in games against opponents you are the same skill with! otherwise its complete wasted because you lose anyway! a better player dont gives a **** about your psychology if you are not on his level of play you can know the world in strategy but if you are not able to play a stroke to the point you want it to what does it help you?!?!
