Hi guys, what would you do if your doubles partner who has weak defense keep lifting and lobbing in a game of doubles? I was partnering one uncle in my badminton group, and that guy keep lifting and lobbing to our opponents who can really smash. I was on the verge of telling him off, but i did not as he is much senior than me. What will you guys do if you were in this scenario. I swear i was about to strangle him during the game.
Tell him to lift cross-court so they will smash at you. Or simply the opponents are just stronger and you shouldn't be partnering with him. Or suck it up and attack back.
Sounds like the opponents are way stronger than your team, or at least, way above your partner's standard. Therefore, such games are not meant to be competitive to begin with. If you still like to play with him, use it as practice (footwork, defense, coverage, etc) If you prefer competitive games, you need to find a new partner.
i agree with LazyBuddy. even on the world stage, sometimes (and i stress SOMETIMES) the players also lift/lob. i suppose it is meant to catch the opponents off-guard and play a short lob back or something along those lines. at lower levels, lifting/lobbing does not KILL the rally that much. it depends how good your opponents are. i seldom overhead lob in doubles because i dont want to get smashed at but i know i should because at my level, my opponents cant smash as well as Fu Haifeng.
Actually you should lift to the middle court slightly crosscourt so that they could smash at the old uncle. Don't lift too high for your opponents, they might dink the shot from over-enthusiasm. A shallow crosscourt lob would be perfect. You don't know it yet but the games with the old uncle is a great opportunity for you to improve defense. You could learn defense, but that would mean driving the return low to a corner where your opponents won't be able to hit it... which can be considered ingratitude on your part cuz you should always give easy returns to your feeders. If the old foggie gets pissed off after they take a few cracks at his head, just tell him that you're only copying his style so that he'll take it as a compliment that you want to learn his ways.
maybe you could try hint it at him by saying like......"wow! they keep smashing us!" , or "we can win if we don't give them so many chances to smash!" Do it jokingly and implicitly... If he doesn't change after that..maybe he just doesn't suit your level so well....it's up to you whether u still wanna play with him!
Hey, if it was me, just tell him a change in tactics is needed, tell him to attack whenever possible, to hit the birdie down. Theres no point in clearing when u can attack. The only reason to clear is if u r in trouble. I had a friend who did the same thing, bugged me alot, i told him if he wants 2 win more points, to hit it down, he did & lets just say our games r a lot closer now when we play other folk.
Lol, i did what you just said, but i felt rather guilty after that. I just lift and lobbed to my opponents, in the end we lost but by a small margin. He stopped talking to me after the game
As I have also ask some older player about these ,they say they are not weak in defence to keep lifting the shuttle far to the baseline. Mostly older player are noy afriad of their opponent smasshes.They are trying to make the opponent tired and when the opponent have to miss hit a return,his stronger partner will make a kill.
Perhaps the expectation is different. When I played with my group I observed another regular group who make up of mainly senior men. Their style of play is primarily position play - i.e. they lob, clear, drop and place the shuttle to almost every part of the court, but almost never smash, unless it is a very weak lift near the front court. They seem to deliberately move the shuttle at in a slower pace, so that each other has time to move in to return the shuttle. They certainly enjoy themselves because the number of rallies are high for every point and they make the most of the time on court. This is in stark contrast from my group, who is relatively younger, play at a faster pace and smash at every opportunity we have. The rally is therefore shorter. We tend to finish 3 games when the senior group would have just about finish their second game. Nonetheless, we enjoy ourselves too. I cannot imagine how we would play if our group and the senior group combined, beacuse the styles are so different. My point is - at different level the style of play and expectation are different. There is no right or wrong way as long as you enjoy the game. If you really find that you cannot fit in the group because of the different style/standard of play, or vice versa if the senior partner of yours cannot fit into your group, then it may be time to look for another group that is more suitable for you/him. Otherwise, stick around and play to the best of your ability - win or lose, you should still enjoy the workout.
I might be making bad assumptions here but I think that the older players tend to have their own styles and limitations. They play slower pace because that's how they have always played. Younger players, on the other hand, have seen more professional games and would thus try to emulate their heros on court. They got speed to burn and it wouldn't befit them to slow down the pace. With healthier joints and stronger legs, who wouldn't go all out? Ironically, most young players only play on one speed. This is a weakness that can be exploited by older players who tend have stronger defense and can weather multiple smashes that's basically the same shot. Linus, not sure if it's true for your older group but alot of older players in the places I go to don't play rotation well. Because of their high clears, it makes little sense to go into offensive as it's really tiring moving up front all the time only have the partner clear it. So they end up playing side by side most of the time.
Well, I am sure you can find another player to partner with. Sometimes you have to voice out your opinion even if your partner is alot older. Just because they're older doesn't mean they're always right. Doubles game is all about communication and you guys aren't communicating at all. It's a game to be enjoyed by all and you're not enjoying it, so you should say something (diplomatically, of course). Anyways, you're not have much fun partnering with him so this is a chance for you to play with someone else. Don't fret about it.