I also think that Chris is not one of the strongest XD male player, but most male players will give the woman the fault for loosing a game and lacking success, right. I wouldn't call Chris my top 10 of current XD male players. Top 20 maybe, but I would prefer Langridge over Chris. He is also not a shining star. Why they fail? I don't know, but does they lost every rally when Gabby flicks? I don't think so. A short serve is easy to learn. Even little girls at 13 years can do short services. IMO we are all humans and can't be the number 1, right? Also there is also private time beside your job, right? Players are not independent to federations and sponsors. I would come across 99 reasons why player X is not at the top, which have nothing to do with their performance and to be honest in Europe the pockets are not deep for badminton.
Like you I don't follow the Adcocks too closely, but the games I have seen, most of the points were won by Chris. Gabby played a lot of blocks, and she was reliable at that, but I don't feel like she was creating winning situations, more like providing a means to continue tenaciously attacking. She didn't seem to be actively attacking shots, she was just so remarkably passive on court. It's not that I want to blame her, but from what I've seen... she just didn't stack up. To me, a player that can in spite of no active front player, still manages to create winning opportunities with good placement is a good XD player. Her passive nature is why I don't think she's good enough to play at SS level.
I cringe every time I see Gabby attempting a short serve, which she will put into the net 95% of the time. Lim Khim Wah is another player who I have no idea how he won a SS, and his serve got even stranger recently. A lot of male players in XD struggle with the low serve too (e.g. Chan Peng Soon and Joachim Fischer Nielsen) which I think is the hardest serve to do.
I would nominate Cheng WenHsing, the Taiwanese female player who played XD and WD but who retired 2 yrs ago. She was amazing at everything, but her serve under pressure was awful when the opponent toed the service line aggressively.
I think calling the Adcocks failures is somewhat harsh. Ok, they aren't in the very top echelon of players, but they have held down a top ten place for 2 or 3 years, that is still something most pairs would be delighted with. Gaby's serve is clearly a major weakness, it's obviously psychological and not a technical issue. I've seen it before with players, Boe had a shocking low service for a while, though it seems to be better now. Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
I don't know about you, but I've had coaches rave about Chris and Gabby and how well their doing. Don't get me wrong they're not celebrities, but within the UK badminton scene some people really rate them highly. I had the opportunity to meet them when they did some PR stuff in my local gym, but I said no and I couldn't see why people were making such a big deal about it.
I'm surprised and alarmed at Misaki's sudden deterioration in the short serve. Now she flicks more often than not.
Misaki is going thru a period of uncertainty and lack of confidence which is affecting her serve and play. Since the OG, I've watched her tournaments and see that her opponents have caught onto her weakness in the back court. So they keep pushing her to the back with high lifts and score points as she tires out from trying to smash ineffectively.
Hehe, I know. But seriously, people (much older than me) seem to make out that these two are one of the world's best pair and are internationally renown. I'd rather spend 3 hours of my life on the internet that listening to them talk about 90% things I already know.
Yes I agree they are highly regarded here rightly or wrongly. In China, Malaysia or any other strong badminton country nobody would bat much of an eyelid, but a top ten pair here is pretty rare so they get a fair bit of exposure. It's all relative, we have nobody else so the plaudits go to the highest ranked player/pair. I suspect they may be more appreciated in 2 or 3 years after the funding has vanished and we have nobody in the top 100 any more. Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
As soon as I saw the title of this thread I thought of Gabby, I remember a couple of years ago at the All England she was serving short and getting annihilated on the return of serve. Towards the later stages she played a lot more flicks and since then seems to have gotten into a rut that she can't get out of. The Adcocks are popular in England obviously as they're one of the top pairs here & TBH, we've not had many other options to cheer about in the later stages of competitions. .
In their Dubai SSF match against Kazuno/Kurihara just today a few hrs ago, she flicked serve 95% of the time, with almost none of her short serves being successful. And yet they won. And they had won this title last year too?! My question (the commentators too) is why her opponents still stubbornly continue to toe the service line when she serves and still struggle to respond aggressively to punish her flick serves?! Surely they should know to receive one or two steps back?!
Makes no sense to me, either. But to be fair, they didn't win their match by brilliant placement, thunderous smashes or anything like that. The Japanese pair made so many unforced errors.
Here is Gabby's one and only attempt at a low serve from today's game: Wait for the replay (side view) and you can see how far off the serve is. Funny how she won a few points purely from the flick, would think that her opponents would be ready for a smash kill.
