All England is his ideal venue, that's what it seems so far. Great to see him subdued NK today. Just cut down on hitting out, he would win many more matches.
Too much clearing > opponent attack > weak defence x 100 Lifting out too much Cut down on these two issues and LZJ will win more matches.
Playing against smaller players like KN, that totally rely on speed, he can play with patient, and strike when there is good opportunity, there is no way KN can cover the full court.
But SYQ played from that side in the first game, if he can win from that side, what fid LZJ do differently
Shi was better coping with the drift. It's normal in badminton and one of the skills - how you cope with the drift or use it to your advantage.
LSF wasted too much time to tie his shoes (?) at critical deuce, prompting umpire to give a red card.
My conclusion is lsf was warned of the delay tactic in game 2. On game 3, he did it again hence the penalty. Is this a correct decision by umpire? (swiss open 2023) LZJ got too many haters. Just look at the media posts. This AE performance shd shut them off. Btw, lzj is no lcw. But still got the chance to win wc or og to overshadow lcw. Also for LZJ sake (if you look back at all his matches since MO), his lifting or push to the back were horrible. Knowing there is a draft, he shd just lift the shuttle super high up and get ready for the next shot instead of wasting about 5 points in every match. He got long hands and good defence, not easy to kill him as well. If he lifts the shuttle high up, his opponent still needs the energy and power to kill him which is not easy. So, out of 5 out shots, he maybe able to get 2 points back. That will definitely help him a lot to win the match. He is now at 85% level. Another 5% more shd be good enough for him to reach top 4 or semis regularly. This will help him qualify for WTF and OG. Kaching kaching time.... money come, money come for him...
Comparing his height in 2021 when he won All England vs now, I can probably point it to the insufficient on court discipline when he was in BAM where he adhered to a regimented training programme with focus coaches. The experiment to go solo without a coach now has back fired disasterously looking at his strings of early rounds exits of late. You can see his error count gets worst now and he struggles to keep his rally clean. His matches score swings wildly over 2 sets indicating lack of consistency and force into rubber games. In neck to neck games, he is battling his mental demon to fight for a point and then give away the next point easily, sometimes in succession. This has dented his confidence and ambition to pursue for the top world rank player. His signature whipping style quick smashes % winners are lesser now. His rock solid defence has also deserted his game now. Maybe he needs to take a sabbatical and retune his mind and racquet techniques basics again. You know the good old ways of gruelling shuttle feed drills and programme movement with multi variation combo and sharpen some deceptive touches as iceing on the cake. His game success in yesteryears has become obsolete. What works 2 years ago may not necessarily works well today. Modern badminton is constantly evolving with more new and young players appearing in the scene out of no where to upset the top ranks. As its now him going independent the more he needs to open up to new ideas and approach in game tactics and strategies which he may lack the resources to do so now. His team may be unaware being inward looking now. Maybe he should consider Hannah Yeoh's offer who knows you never know if you never try.
I wonder if he is going to be able to defend his asian champ title? I dun remember much about it frm the last one. Are all the top players going to be there?
No point going back BAM coz he is getting a lot of money from existing sponsors like LG and Victor. But RTG is ok. No harm. No MS is consistent now. All 9 tournaments got 9 winners. All to play for. Luck play like 10%. btw, u notice daren games getting worse. Once you start coaching, it starts going down hill. So, the advice is, don't do coaching if you want to play at the highest level. Focus.
Consistency is the most important point for him. He has good skill but his consistency goes up and down very drastic. If he's able to fix this then he can go very far.
