Thanks! That clears up a lot. I had read about the change to only 60 second breaks between games. But what is going on with this time-out thing! That is pretty weird for badminton! One 120 second timeout during the first four games per player/pair, and one timeout per player/pair in the fifth? That can be a long fifth, and very tactical breaks, like people use the challenges now sometimes. I'm not sure how this will work out.
That's a whole different story, fully agree. I think the reason why they even come up with timeouts was that coaching between rallies would have been forbidden. But yeah, I can see why this topic might cause a lot of discussions (just look at the following posts and pages of that old thread...) and honestly, I don't have a real opinion on that yet myself. I can see the point of forbidding or reducing that non-stop coaching that we see between almost every rally. Tactical awareness of the players themselves would become a lot more important which would add another interesting twist to the matches.
Yeah I like that they can't coach between the rallies (edit: intervals would be fine for me). But the extra timeouts in the fifth may make a fifth a bit chaotic like this: 5-3 challenge (20s) 6-4 switch ends (no break, but is still a small mental break 30s) 8-7 challenge (20s) 9-7 time out (120s) 10-9 challenge (20s) 10-10 timeout (120s) 12-11 challenge (20s) 13-11 Almost more breaks than playtime. Edit: Oh I didn't even include towel down and mop requests! edit: formatting and break times
That just shifts the responsibility of that awareness to the athlete, it's still part of the game. I would guess it's too reduce the breaks between rallies and I would really like that, I just don't think it will work that way.
The umpire already has discretion over breaks, and I think tactical responsibility should be on the players' shoulders alone. I was watching a 2002 match yesterday (AE MDF, I think) and what struck me most was not the pace of the rallies, but the pace of the play - one point went to the next with almost no dithering or gamesmanship. Badminton is going the way of tennis - players towelling down after a frigging aced serve?! Come on.
I get it, where comes the idea to get rid of coaches and may be it is a good idea. Myself, I do like watching them coach in the breaks and trying to learn from that, feel like it also adds to the drama. During the rallies, it is interesting to watch their reaction and some of them sitting still without any emotion while others are all the way into it. I often cheer for Kenneth more than the player, nice to see him been so emotional... I like seeing how they work and how they manage to make the players play better after the break and help the player to get to their best game... Of course the delays and interfering in the matches is not good at all and that is a good reason to consider getting rid of them, also it does not happen as much lately.. Perhaps there could be some arrangement done in the hall to prevent them interfering? Like an official with the responsibility to remove the coaches, if they breaking the acceptable limits, without an umpire or referee attention needed???
Reducing coaching windows to inter-game (not intra-game) would be a good start. The players confer at 11 and the coaches only come in between games.
