Besides learning to keep up concentration, you although need to adapt your game once you are tired. E.g. you no longer are able to compensate weaknesses in tactics with fast footwork, this way you are forced to practise things you would not need when being fit. Edit: Removed a reference to an other player, that I could not pove. Edit: changed exhausted to tired
I disagree, training precise movements is indeed not very useful when exhausted but in a real match scenario you are going to get exhausted and you are going to need to focus on some points even if you are phasing out. Practicing while exhausted helps you do that. You are not going to perfect your stroke while training exhausted but you are going to decrease that drop in quality while you get tired.
I believe you can train anaerobic capacity. I believe you can train stamina. I really doubt it’s good to train if you are exhausted. Isn’t that asking for injuries?
All that is true Exhausted might be a bit too much indeed. But I still believe that being able to play badminton under anaerobic threshold would be way too much work right? Therefore there will be cases when you are not 100% lucid anymore but you still need to maintain focus. But then again you are right I would not advise to train while fully exhausted, just a tad tired.
Maybe exhausted is going to far, tired might be a better term. Well, you should never train beyond a stage where you are unable to control your movement and risk injury. Sorry if I implied this. But my point is, that when you are tired to play your common routine, like jump smashing, quickly moving around a shuttle etc., that you need to adapt in a situation, where every jump smash and movement is really draining too much power. This is the time, when you need to change your routine and need to adapt, other shot choice, more energy efficient movement and shots, better shot sequences etc. In my opinion a lot of training and drilling is about a game situation, where you are fit. But what happens if you play vs a player who is just good at defending and a neutral game ? If you are used to play a fast and hard game, what will happen if the other players just drain your battery so fast, that you are unable to continue playing this game style. Will you just let it pass and take some experiences back home, but not a win, or do you try to adapt ? Momota is one of these players, having so much skill and shot quality, that he is able to drain every single player in the world with a neutral game. I'm not sure if stamina alone is the solution.
Last tournament of 2019, and 2 losses/learning experiences. My lack of MS training is evident, with my footwork being a bit stuttered, and general feeling of panic when opponents are holding strokes. Each opponent I found tough in VERY different ways - opponent in MS2 really pushed me to use retrieve in the full court (making me feel like I was travelling half a step further than usual everywhere), whereas opponent in MS1 was extremely fast at retrieving (often returning strokes before I had recovered properly)! MS2 is a good game for me to review as my opponent is moving me around well, so should serve to highlight both my technical and tactical weakness...MS1 shows my difficulty warming up (4-21) and a much better catch up (19-21). Overall, I found it extremely hard to play when facing the netting at the back - I felt like everything was hit behind me/over me, and I took a lot of effort to stay low and move backwards efficiently, rather than be upright (falling backwards). I don't know if this is a function of seeing the shuttle late, the higher sports hall ceiling, or my opponents playing lifts/clears at the perfect height where I couldn't decide between a jump out or other rearcourt footwork. Anyway, I am playing in grey - let me know what you think!
I think you're improving a lot both in terms of strength and speed, as you're reacting faster and have better preparation and balance. I just feel like the predominent issue is still that you attack way too much. The biggest difference between you and your opponents in the latest videos is that they're more set up when attacking, smashing your loose shots, and following up at the net. In comparison when you're attacking you're getting countered frequently, which means two things: 1. You did not attack the correct shot and hence not able to follow through by moving forward in anticipation of the block (for example smashing when you're all the way back at the tramlines), or 2. Your smashes aren't potent enough (speed, angle, direction), to force a poor block. Just as a very good example, you started MS2 losing multiple points trying to smash, then you started playing clears and drop shots and started winning many more points. At this level in singles you can beat 99% of people by simply moving them around and only attacking when you've forced a poor lift, instead of going for it against a serve or a deep clear.
It doesn't matter how deep the shuttle is. As long as your contact point is in front of you, you can attack and pressure your opponent super hard. That's why we serve short in singles. I think your analysis can be better said as your contact point for smashes were bad, resulting in bad smashes. Just because it's a deep lift or clear doesn't mean we can't make threatening smashes.
Well you could say that, but at OP and his opponents' level, it's very rare to see a one shot smash winner from a high serve that goes to the tramlines. Also, everyone can be better if we get better at everything, so I don't think that kind of analysis is useful at all. The thing is, OP is consistently losing in all of these videos, but I personally believe he has a very good chance of beating most of them just with different tactics. As both videos progressed, he started playing a lot more rallies, and you could see how much more the opponents were moving compared to at the beginning. He started forcing mistakes, instead of forcing winners. I do concur though, singles is about shot quality and the chain reaction from each shot, so definitely with improved shot quality OP would have a much better chance to win all these games, but I'm sure he already knows that... In terms of small steps to take for OP, I would consider: 1. avoid playing drop shots when the opponent is ready and waiting, as the drop shots are not sharp enough, often putting you in serious trouble; 2. However (from 1), your drop shots from poor lifts/clears are very sharp and you should play it more often when in an advantageous position in a rally instead of going for a smash. You win many many points playing fast drops in lots of videos; 3. Experiment more with the height of your lifts and clears. It should be adjusted with every opponent's height. In general you want them to be fast, just out of their reach to put them under pressure, which leads to 4. Force mistakes out of your opponents, instead of forcing winners. Of course you're still playing winners in these situations, but the winners should feel extra easy and enjoyable to hit, rather than trying extra hard for it.
Having the camera set higher will be better. To me, you look like you have no strategy. Your movement and strokes are better though there things to work on. However the benefits are non existent because you play shots at random without a clear objective. There are shots where you play to the opponents strong area, and then play another shot to the same place.
This is probably not a popular suggestion, but once again I have to mention that I feel like dzs is not the right racquet to be using at this stage. It's simply far too stiff and you're unable to flex it. You can tell by the lack of sound and power off the clears and smashes. Something like ax77 would be far, far easier to use (especially 4U).
Against both opponents, I felt their defence was rock solid - certainly stronger than a lot of the opponents I play against. By that, I don't expect a 1-shot winner, but these two opponents were counterattacking (in different ways) off of my attacks. Both of your comments concern strategy significantly - i felt two things in these matches: lack of control of the shuttle (really hard to gauge the back lines) and difficulty in retrieval (really felt under pressure). It is fair to say my only strategy was "make my opponent play 1 more shot", and nothing more than that. In MS2, i noticed my opponent play a lot of backhand strokes, and i tried to combine this into a sequence to exploit this, but failed to do so. Against MS1, it is clear that a change in strategy led to a much different outcome (4-21 vs 19-21). I felt that I needed to play things at a 20-30cm margin of error to the lines against MS2 to make the difference, and I struggled to achieve this accuracy, especially where he was being very accurate to the line and making me retrieve on the whole court on my side...never have I had to dive to scrape shuttles off the floor in a tournament so much! I am not sure if this is negative (lapse in posture/technique/footwork) or positive (getting to shuttles I didn't used to get to in the past). In the last two tournaments, I have played more drop shots than usual...some of my drops may look more like smashes, because I really struggle to get the right feeling on drops vs. smashes without the shuttles looping over a lot. My past 4-6 weeks training needs me to be quite far behind the shuttle to get a consistent drop shot (ideal smashing position), whereas I was finding myself more half falling backwards to play a drop/clear/half smash which needs much better racquet carriage and feel. Clears/lifts i mentioned briefly there - when I find it hard to judge the back line, I find it extra hard to find the back line for different shuttle heights. I've been experimenting in my club, but the high ceilings in this tournament hall made it extremely hard to figure out how high/hard to hit, especially with lack of aural feedback. I still think the biggest difference is just improving technique, and the racquet is a tiny modifier. I couldn't find consistent contact in this hall, not least of the hall height, shuttle, sound, netting/wall/visibility...a racquet with a bigger sweetspot/ more flex to be more forgiving on timing may have helped slightly. I had one of the DZS crack in this tourney, so i now don't have a spare. I'll may try experiment with a 3UG5 Duo-8XP instead, but it's really fine tuning compared to much bigger things like technique/footwork/strategy mentioned above!
Just some examples in MS2 where your drop shots won you the points, 1:07, 1:26, 1:45. 1:45 is the one I want to highlight because that's a short lift and you could've easily gone for a smash, but that drop shot was very potent. It was fast and sharp and your opponent did not move before it hit the floor. Play that more!
There are several reasons: - Your smash reaches the opponent at their waist level. I noticed that if your smash is steeper, then the opponent has to stretch more. - Your contact point seems a bit low on the overhead - You are not disguising your overhead very well. The opponent is able to anticipate your shot and therefore apparently move faster to make a reply. - You are not able to test the opponent with your shots because of the conditions - this requires doing some practice in different halls. Sometimes playing with different brands of shuttles. (I have three different brands at home for training!) - You tend to play the shot that you are most comfortable with rather than a shot that the opponent is not comfortable with. - If the opponent sees you in a certain position slightly off balance, they know which area of the court you will play to. - dropshots need to be a bit better in quality - try to notice weaker areas of the opponent. The MS1 I would say is a doubles player who plays a lot of singles. What are the strong points? Anything at his waist height he hits very well sometimes whipping the shot across court. His smash is good. What are his weaker shots or areas? What are his replies to attack clears? If he cuts them off, what playing just very slightly higher so that he can't quite reach them comfortably? Did you notice he is very strong off your backhand flick serve? However, you still continued to play that serve. Doubles players don't have such good movement from the back to the front court so good clears and lifts to the back tramlines are your strategy to open up the front area to play to. A good lift is one that is not slightly flat that is typical in a doubles match. Did you notice his overhead forehand plays differently to his round the head area? - with the above points and difficulties, you lost your rhythm. You were unable to adjust the speed of your bounce, get back your balance. You get frustrated and this makes your game lose some quality. Of course some days are bad days and some are good. Sounds like you had a bad day, perhaps a long drive or poor sleep the night before. Or lack of practice the week before - this is quite important. A fairly common practice for some of us in Hong Kong is to book a court before our match starts and practice routines. Of course we are a bit lucky by the number of courts in a short distance. For example, there is a big schools tournament today starting at 12noon. Many parents are booking courts in the morning before the match starts for their kids to practiceand then traveling to the venue. Yeah, sounds a bit crazy but it works!
I think this is a very relevant post. In these games, the dropshots were very ineffective when the opponent is ready and waiting. You can see they only need one step. However OP didn't seem to notice this.
Haha, I noticed this plenty, but in my shoes, what do I do when my opponent is ready and waiting when I shouldn't smash, shouldn't drop (with my consistency anyway), and cannot clear accurately? My 'neutral' half smash gets pinged crosscourt and again, opponent takes 1 step maximum. In such a case, i play a loose drop shot anyway, not because I think it's a great idea, but because it's the least worst option, and because I do not have the skill to make it tighter. I'd love to make my opponent move two steps, but one step at a time!
In this case, playing a punch clear is the easiest shot. Try to practice more punch clears during training and hit those corners.
If those don't work, play high clears and judge the length. Work on something that can prolong the rallies and is useful for another day. If you have a bad day at the office, and it happens to the best of us, try to work out the non-match factors and reduce those factors for the next tournament. Bad shots? Get back to your coach and work out why. Perhaps your technique unwittingly reverted to old habits.
4:03 of MS2 is an example of where I basically did as you mentioned - prolong the rally and play the clears. In this case, it was late enough in the tourney that I was better able to judge the clear length (also playing against the wall, rather than the netted curtain). Only other thing I can think would be to throw in punch clears as @llrr says in this sort of rally. Is this overall an example of a better rally, or perhaps a bit too slow with the high clears? I know I lost the point, but my foot did slip on my rearcourt retrieval (which is why you see my lunge suddenly just slow down, rather than properly push into the corner), so i find it difficult to evaluate it as a rally and would see it as overall a neutral rally.
It’s OK but a bit one paced. It gets him moving but you can see he is very comfortable with the pace and controlling the rally. As I wrote earlier, you had a bad day at the office. Work out where your biggest weaknesses were that day and train those. I would say from this particular day, A) steepness of smash B) dropshots quality, speed and disguise C) deep forehand rear court
