Well I think as the great champion that he is, the greatest surely, he does have obligations, though it is surely a pressure for him
But that is not to say his responsibility is so great, overall his influence cannot be so great. But his behaviour toward badminton is light to say the least
I hope so! For the Junior championship, the gold - silver - bronze of that year was remarquable. There turned out to be great players, even if Bao did not win many titles and Sony was injured most of the time.
Chill guys, LD losing to unknown opponents shouldn't really be a surprise by now. I think that he decides only to play a certain amount of his energy during a match and if his opponents play very well and he needs to put in more energy to win the game, he just gives his opponent the match. Nowadays his gameplay is more to the defensive side. He hardly attacks. But can he still attack? Yup Im sure he could. Look at how he played lcw in JO15. It was quite aggressive and he played at a faster pace. His final against viktor axelsen wasn't so impressive though..he could have sped up the game and attacked but he didn't. Just thought he was lucky to have won and he celebrated like he tried his best but im pretty sure he didnt do his best. The true test will be the olympics 2016. If he loses in the early rounds then you know he is kinda finished for real.
That is why we say he has an attitude problem! I think we all guess that he can do more, but he choose not to. It is dispiriting (to me) to see no fighting spirit, so laid back-casual approach in him, the great warrior
Well. If you make it to number 3 in the world, with a laid back no fighting style. .. You cannot be completely washed out, can you?
You simply expect more from him than from everybody else. Which is fair, but only at the really top tier events. Eg. OG2016. There he needs to get a medal, if not reach the final. Everything else would be a failure.
Why do we say he has an attitude problem when really it's an age problem that he has... This problem eventually faces all pro athletes, especially those at the very pinnacle of their sport and career. Knowing when to step down and retire before fading away embarrassingly should and probably is on the minds foremost of both LD and LCW. As I said earlier, if not for Rio, both of them would've happily retired last year already.
I would argue that it's definitely an attitude problem ever since the Olympics 2012 ended But the attitude problem ALSO affects his physical because it means he won't be training or be motivated to train as hard as he used to. Age certainly has slowed him down but his results in the last year I believe have more to do from his lack of motivation to perform at the top of his physical or mental ability. If you look at Roger Federer, who is now 34, he went through a time around Lin Dan's age around 31-32 where he went from #1 down to around #6 which many people thought was his age catching up to him. He has worked his way back to be consistently #2 in the world in the last year and if you ever watch his matches, he does not play lazily and the only difference in his game compared to his prime is that he's much more error prone and has lost some consistency. And he plays a full year-round schedule and has never taken an 6-8 month break, playing from one tournament to the next. If you look at Lin Dan, I believe the best example of recent times is his loss to Victor Axelsen though I would agree that Victor was playing some great badminton. He looked just in a daze as the whole match slipped away from him with little fighting spirit as Renbo said earlier. And until this last year, he cherry picked the tournaments he wanted to attend and as a result, his ranking slipped way down. This all sounds quite harsh of course because Lin Dan has definitely achieved so much in his career to deserve a break and we're all just happy that he's continuing on until Rio which I think is longer than most of us thought. I'm only drawing comparisons to another great champion in Tennis who is older than Lin Dan but is still just as hungry to win more and are training very hard to keep up with the younger upcoming competition with results to show.
Don't know why so much cry here???????????? Won Sudirman Cup,,,,Crowned Asian Champion,,,,Won Super Series....... and still people complaining about attitude and bla bla......Just ask Viktor Axelsen and JOJ.....they would happily swap their respective achievement this year with Lin Dan's.....Anyways,LD will slowly start bouncing back from China Open......A semifinal appearance would satisfy me.....
While that has been debated many times!!! I think tennis is also very demanding, specially mentally, as the matches can last three-four hours
