Let have some fun on this topic. There are 2 keys. 1st one is back hand. 2nd is people reaction. If your back hand return is weak, you are forever a beginner. If you can do back hand drop, you are at intermediate level. If you can do back hand clear from baseline to baseline clear, you are intermediate plus. If you can do back hand smack, you can beat 90% of the players. The fun part is people reacting to you on court. If everybody want to play with you, then you are the best in this particular club. If most players want to play with you, then you are at intermediate level. If only a few people want to play with you, then beginner is your label. If everybody leaves as soon as you step on court, you better bring your mother with you.
I rate players on: how fast and agile they are; this includes footwork how clean their shots are; meaning a clear should better fall damn near to the baseline or a dropshot should have the right speed and target point.
I think this is relative to other players in your club. You can be a beginner in one club and an intermediate in another. I always do an overhead on my backhand side, so I never really learn to hit a backhand. But I improve in other areas of my game, so other players want to play with me. I found what happens rather is that people who know one another well tend to stick with playing together because they are usually at similar levels.
It's difficult to quantify - and as rayvinly said it'll depend on the club. Where I play has a system with 5 grades, and the club pro/coaches use a set of criteria to determine who will fall into which grade. I think the key areas to look for are: Consistency Footwork Positioning Tactics/Controlling the game Cleanliness of technique and shot quality With each area being improved upon equally as one advances. At higher levels things like deception, power and athleticism become more important. But more importantly, shoes and racquets - the more money spent on these, the better the player (obviously!)
We have to look the performance of the players is that good or bad.If they are playing nervousily then we have to know they are not playing properly or worse. From this type of feelings we can measure the Level mof play.
It highly depends on what you mean by "measuring." If you want to select a team for competition, and future potential, then there are tons of test indicators you can use to judge the quality of a player. How fast can you run the four corners, for example, or what is your heart rate after three minutes of stepping up a ladder, and many other things. Problem, of course, it takes a lot of effort to get these info, hence testing. A popular but scientifically completely invalid shortcut: smash speed, the faster, the better - simple, eh? If you want to judge a player's level of play by hindsight, say, watching him on video, or live on court, you already can draw distinctions just by stature and physical look. Lower legs and forearm muscles tell a lot. If you can see NO prominent muscles there, the player may not be too difficult. If you can see prominent muscles there, indeed, there are two types. Either, it is a body builder for sake of body building, then he may lack the training for speeding up his nerves and coordination - hence powerful but lazy and slow; or he truly is a quite threatening player of fast power-up ability. Tall players have a natural advantage, but they seldom jump and their jump abilites are quite weak. Skinny players are extremely enduring just by the nature of muscle-body relation. And then there are tacticals ... too many ways, don't a simple shortcut to it. Final point, Lee Chong Wei can do benchpressing with heavy weights similar to other players but 130 ranks below him! So, fitness is a must, but not a sufficient criteria, too.
I am worse, not even qualify because never join local tournaments. I am not even a "C" level in Indonesia.
I merged a couple of threads into this one Probably the best answer was this one from Mag. Anyhow, the reason for bringing up this thread was a recent experience. I get some people emailing me for games occasionally and they would give an answer of intermediate - advanced etc. Because court space is pretty tight in HK, it's better to have a more accurate idea. So, I would ask for information such as league experience and tournaments experience in the person's own country. It gives a better idea of the non-social level. And interestingly, the last couple of people have failed to reply. I got a bit embarrassed by one girl a number of years ago. She said she was advanced level. So, I thought that would fit into my group of competition experienced players. Thought it would be quite exciting to see a new player. Oh wow, was I embarrassed or was I embarrassed. Turns out she is willing to run around court but doesn't have an idea of footwork or proper techniques. All my group were asking me "I thought you said she was good....". All I could say was "That was what she told me.. "
The problem is: You can't define it in a way that is understood by everyone in the same way. Even if you prescribe very precisely, some beginners will say/think: "Yeah, I can play a clear to the baseline, I can play tight drops, my smash is lethal and my drive lightening fast." In reality they play only with other beginners/bad players and get this wrong impresiion by simply being the best of their rather bad group (in Germany there's a saying: " the one-eyed is the king in a group of blind people...") You can never define things properly, as level of play is always relative, there is no gold standard like in running or so...
I think that the levels of playing may be categorized into three levels, they are the entry level, intermediate level and the expert level. Here, each individual share their individual opinion about level of players. So, I am including my opinion.
Agree. Hence, I now ask for competition and league match experience to judge. It's a better discriminatory question to gauge people's standard without actually having seen them. I haven't met any German players yet.
Met a lady who said something similar. Turned out she meant advanced beginner, and in reality she wasn't even that :-S
Had a recent case where a lady was thinking of referring her friend to me as this friend was "quite good in her group". A few pertinant questions on competition experience gave a bit more food for thought.
nope, this isn't true. I'm at an intermediate player, a middle in my place, but so many players hate to play against and with me. maybe it's my game style there was also a very good player at my place that people don't want to play with but are willing to play against, because they know they will just be at the front and do nothing when they are paired with him.
He does all the work, so it's more like playing XD, except that the other player can just do nothing beside standing at the T and pounce every weak replies. waiting with a panhandle grip. this is the problem of my country, Indonesia, Many double pairs who have a weak-strong player pair tend to play like that . The strong at the back and the weak at the front and never rotate. That is why many players don't advance from the beginner level for many years.
