Just finished participating in a high level friendly match a few days back. Since i'm a single player, the friendly match that we had was based only on double format.... so i paired with a partner (former Selangor state player) which i just going to know for couple of weeks before the friendly match. This friendly match that we had was very important for my team since the team that we're facing consist of former national and state player in which we were beaten with the slightest margin of defeat last year ( where i played single and won). This friendly was contested by playing 11 double and the winner will take 10 tube of RSL Classic shuttlecocks. The arrangement of play will not be revealed until the names of player being called, so our top doubles player does not know wether they will play against their top double also. As my partnership with my partner was new, out of the 11 pair that we have, basically we're seeded anywhere at 7/8 (damned why there are no single.......). And the matches begins................ We don't know what happen to our opponents strategy, they fielded their weakess double player (but still they're former state players) to play against our top 5 pair which ended by my team leading 5-0. Then i and my partner turned to play with an intention to finished them off coz if we can win, then the score will be 6-0 and we will become the overall winner.....and this is my story... When our opponent names being called, straight away i knew that i'm facing they're top double player (consist of former national player ). Knowing that we're facing a formidable pair, i told my partner that we can win this game as long as we played normally without having any fear what so ever against who we're facing......and we did played well. 1st set.....our opponent thougt they can kill us off easily but then we fought like spartans similarly from the movie 300...... and we lost 19-21. Knowing that we can do better...we played fast attacking type of gameplay..matching our opponent point to point, muscle to muscle....and by knowing that i'm using a Protech Nano Titanium 9000 (p/s: sorry to my AT700).......we won the 2nd set even better with a score of 21-15. And then the deciding set comes.......as we know that if we can continously play similarly like the 2nd set, the chances that we can win will be much greater....so we maintain that technique and.............................fuyooooooooo, indeed we lead them 18-10. At this point, knowing that we only need 3 points to win, (and eventually emerged as champion...... and we can see at our opponent faces that morally they're facing an inevitable defeat.................................................................we made a very crucial mistake....it is not a mistake from the point of technique.....or strategy....or fitness.............................but mental stiffness. WE WERE JUST OVERCONFIDENT that we can win.......that's it. With this overconfident mood, especially knowing that we're in a path of beating a pair of former national player and our opponent top double................we just totally lost focus and concentration in our real gameplay..........in which we start to play fancy type of shots which ended with numerous, uncountable error. As our opponent are gaining more points from our own mistakes.......they manage to level the score at 18-18!!......and at the end....... that 18 point was the last point that god gave us..........as our opponents won after....... gaining straight 11 point to win the match with a score of 21-18:crying::crying:. To me i speak to myself..........i lost because i just killed my own gameplay coz i was just overconfident and eager to win that match without realizing that that i should just concentrate on our real gameplay and focus on gaining one point at a time..........
Yes george. A painfull way to learn......but then as a player, every success comes from analyzing the defeats that we encountered....and make it to the better use to ourselves in the future...
Exactly, take this as a lesson learned, and hopefully you won't make the same mistake in a real tournament match. thanks for sharing
I've done exactly the same thing before (and would never do it again) - you have to take a lot away from this game. Think about it, you're gonna finish the game quicker and easier playing your normal game that you've been killing your opponents with this set and last, if you step off the gas, you're gonna take much longer to win so play your normal game, kill it off quick.
you avoided a one-sided whitewash which might be too embarrassing for the opponent team!! I know you let it happen on purpose!!
I have been on the other side of this, i was 20-13 down and came back to win 23-21, it was against a friend of mine who was getting rather cocky, oh my it felt good
You will never be overconfident again . In my experience usually the problem when you are winning is that you get really anxious to win and choke. Overconfidence is an unusual (but much more easily fixed) problem.
hahaahaha........nice way to comfort me there divingbirdie.........anyway nice opinion from all of you..........
wow. Thanks for sharing your story. It got me to think about my past games where I chocked also. brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr hopefully that will never happen again.