You don't need a hard smash to be effective - vary it with drops, fast ones especially, which your opponents will have to take far below the tape, and move them around before going for an all-out smash or disguised drop shot - even if they bring their base position forward a bit, opponents are going to tire running back and forth to dig up your shots, and will eventually be positioned badly. Setiawan, for example, doesn't have a hard smash by any means, but it sure is pretty effective in relation to its speed.
Lee Yong Dae has entered the Chinese Taipei Open with Kim Gi Jung..... most peculiar. I wonder if this means this is the pair he's going with during the Olympic qualification..
YYS probably thought it best for LYD too. They couldn't stamp their dominance during their 4 tournaments together, compared to when LYD was with KGJ and prompty won the Spain Masters. LYD and YYS are still playing in Akita so let's see what happens.
It's a shame LYD/YYS have not really tried hard enough to get their partnership to work again. Not entirely sure who is to blame or if both are to blame but there is definitely more potential with YYS than with KGJ. My personal view is that the problem lies mainly with LYD. His form has declined significantly since 2016 (which was not his peak) and because of his alpha-personality he would always put the blame on his partner for faults/errors but never himself. He would also never applaud his partners for good performance but celebrates on his own when things goes well. A good partnership should share not just the wins, but the pain of the losses. And I feel LYD does not do this. This is just my observation though. Of the players that are available to LYD, YYS is definitely the best choice imo. But I sense his heart just wasn't there. When you watch them play, you can clearly see some issues. 1. Serve. This is where they are losing out massively. They were losing so many points on their serve it was like giving their opponents 5-10 points a game. Neither LYD nor YYS have adapted to the new service rules very well. But LYD is probably struggling the most. If you watch his practice/friendly games these days, he would always go back to serving the way he used to serve, before the new rules came about. This tells me a lot. He has not embraced the new service rules, he is not determined enough to make the adjustment and practice it at every opportunity. 2. Net dominance - LYD just does not dominate the net anymore and this prevents YYS using his main weapon - his smash. It's not that his shot quality is poor but he is just not as fast as he used to be and is not as determined. There were some other issues such as unforced errors, playing the wrong shots, but these will all get ironed out the more they play. On a positive note though, I think LYD's smash has improved marginally. There is slightly more power and he sometimes tries to place it in different positions. But it is still too flat which is inviting a counterattack. I think he can use more angle and try make his smash steeper.
Totally agree. If you watch how he celebrates his big wins (eg. the KOR open final against Li/Liu where it was supposed to be his last tournament before retiring), he never looks towards his partner but at the crowd and the cameras. YYS would look towards LYD but is often left to celebrate by himself. This tells volumes about their partnership. Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk
yup, you're absolutely right. i'd like to add 3. when you leave a regular team training environment late in your career for a significant time period due to retirement or injury the game passes you by. everything gets faster and the group of younger opponents you left behind gets fitter. when you return they are 1% faster and you are 1% slower. it's a subtle yet huge gap which makes imposing your superior 'skill set' upon them physically more difficult even though your mind is convinced you're still better than them. has any player returned to the top 10 after leaving their team or sustaining a serious injury in the latter stage of their career? most recently: li xue rui & carolina marin were both 25 at their time of injury. we see what's happening to lxr...
LCW came back after his lengthy suspension, so did Mogensen after his aneurism Also, Setiawan came back to partner Ahsan after years in the wilderness with my favorite overweight athlete
i predicted those names would pop up... lcw didn't adopt the mindset of a player on the brink of retirement. nor did he tone down his activity. he was active on the 'outside' during his administrative injury. yes, zendra was in the wilderness w/ the original panda but he didn't stop training/playing at a high level. mogensen is the exception to the rule in this case. korea's graduating class seemed to waver along before deciding on a comeback, despite the lawsuit. were they training anywhere during their transition? i don't have a good feeling about axelsen's situation. his susceptibility to injury has always been higher than the typical badminton player. i'm 50/50 regarding the outcome of carolina's eventual return.
Ahsan/Setiawan are now back at WR#4 and I could see them being top 3 if they really cared enough to go all out. Btw they both left the national team to go independent. Setiawan was definitely not training with PBSI when he was partnered with TBH.
true, but he was still training and sparring somewhere. the point is: where were all the 'retired' korean players training/sparring/staying fit after they left kba? i don't count league play because nobody takes it too seriously. it's merely earning a paycheck while avoiding injury.
Kim and Kim played in Thailand without doing any training together. That's what they told Badzine. According to some local players I talked to, Lee and Yoo were training together in the Suwon gym, where Yoo trains regularly, on a few occasions prior to Australia. That's easier for them because Lee's Yonex team is based in Seoul. Lee himself used to be based in Suwon when he was not at the national training centre because that's where the Samsung team trains. Kim/Kim and Jung Jae Sung, and Lee/Lee in WD all played there at the same time. Perhaps your more general question is about their training frequency on an ongoing basis. All of the players talk about how much less exhausting training with their pro teams is. Still, though, these players all go for several years - except in cases of injury or pregnancy - after leaving the national team. Their pro team gives them a place to live and a salary and they train regularly. As for sparring, players like Kim Gi Jung might have it tougher because most of the good doubles players on his pro team are on the national team, which means they are never in Suwon training with Samsung. Kim Sa Rang is now in Miryang and he has some okay team-mates there, including, I think, his former team-mate and Lee's junior partner Cho Gun Woo. Their best other player is Chung Eui Seok, who is still at the national training centre, even though he never gets sent abroad for tournaments any more. Lee Yong Dae and Yoo Yeon Seong have sparring with former national or junior national team players, too. Lee's only national team team-mate is Choi Sol Gyu and none of Yoo's teammates are on the national team. Ko/Shin can train regularly with the Gimcheon team but the top doubles players on their pro team, Na/Wang, are on the national team so Ko/Shin will rarely spar with them.
Lee Hyun Il is a player who retired a few times but then came back, how did he train and stay fit? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Same thing. He 'retired' to his pro team. In 2007 and 2008, it was Gimcheon. In 2012, it was Yonex, but he had moved to MG Saemaeul by the time he made his most recent comeback in late 2013. This year, he moved again to Miryang. For a singles player, it's not as difficult to get sparring but you can see from the article at that link that he didn't have any top-quality players to spar against. Park Sung Min isn't bad. Lee Dong Geun was his team-mate at MG for a few years, but they rarely sparred. Same reason as above. National team. As for fitness, though, the pro teams have a coach and training facilities always available.