Satwik Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty won a three game thriller against No.6 Mads Conrad Petersen/Mads Pieler Kolding. This is the third time they have beaten a top 10 pair. This is their 2nd QF appearance at an SS event. One more QF finish and they will meet the 2018 target. Satwik/Chirag are India's most exciting juniors and are exceeding expectations. Link: http://bwfworldsuperseries.com/news...dian-rope-trick-day-3-yonex-french-open-2017/ Excerpt: Fast-rising Indian youngsters Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty claimed their biggest scalps yet, downing sixth seeds Mads Conrad-Petersen and Mads Pieler Kolding last evening at the Yonex French Open 2017. Men’s Doubles duo Rankireddy and Shetty (featured image), despite flirting with thoughts of defeat, nudged the tape ahead of their higher-ranked opponents to enter the quarter-finals. The Indians were sharp in the flat game, anticipating well at the front, and preventing the Danes from getting their big smashes. With an 18-11 lead in the third the Indians started to get nervous, allowing the Danes to inch closer and level at 19, before Shetty poached at the net for the crucial point to make it 20-19. An uncharacteristically wayward shot from Conrad-Petersen blew the Danes’ hopes and the Indians collapsed to the floor in relief and joy. The Indians face another formidable Danish combination in their next match – second seeds Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen. Should the Indians pull off another upset, they will be in their first Superseries semi-finals. “I wasn’t confident even though we had the lead,” said Rankireddy. “In the first game I was feeling free, but in the third, we kept thinking we would lose.” “They were serving well and catching the returns well,” added Shetty. “We were pretty nervous. We have a habit of losing after leading, so we were tense. We didn’t expect to win. The conditions were fast and suitable to our style. We got a good lead in the third as we were serving well and taking the first shot. We played a lot of drives, we wanted to keep the shuttle as low as possible.”
You are doing a great job, you put things together very well......your words & articles words go well together
Satwik Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty put up a spirited display before going down fighting against Denmark's No.1 Mathias Boe/Catrsten Mogensen. Inexperince and nerves made the difference in a close match. Satwik was animated and frustrated at times with his own and Chirag's mistakes. Satwik remained cool when he smashed winners. In contrast, Satwik remains a silent partner when he partners Ashwini Ponappa. Ashwini does the talking and sometimes just smiles when either makes a mistake. Which is a good way to relieve pressure. Tan Kim Her's plan is semifinal finishes in 2019 and finals in 2020. But Satwik/Chirag look like one of the pairs who will beat that target ahead of time in 2019. Over the next 3 years we will see them become more confident, learn new strokes and gain experience. Link: http://bwfworldsuperseries.com/news...-seeds-eclipsed-day-4-yonex-french-open-2017/ Excerpt: Stiff Workout for Danes In Men’s Doubles, defending champions Mathias Boe/Carsten Mogensen were given a mighty scare by emerging Indian pair Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty. The Indians, blown away in the opening game, settled down to display some clever badminton. Showing greater patience and anticipating correctly, the Indians had the Danes in a tangle with their touch at the forecourt. Shetty in particular was a sensation at the net, causing his opposite number all kinds of problems, while Rankireddy’s powerful smash did plenty of damage. At 17-all in the third the match was on a knife edge, but once again the Danes showed their mastery of such situations. Boe took charge, darting to the net to clinch the vital lead at 18-17 and the Danes built on that to take the match 21-5 17-21 21-17.
French SS 2017 India Take 1 Title! MS Champion Srikanth Kidambi Srikanth Kidambi had a tougher semifinal against HS Prannoy. If Prannoy was on the other side it could have been an all Indian final! Srikanth wins his 4th SS title of 2017 and 2nd back to back tournament. Kenta Nishimoto put up a good fight but he was no match for Srikanth. Still can't believe Lee Chong Wei lost to him. Srikanth is starting to show consistency on the circuit, it's now up to the other Indian players to join him. Saina Nehwal performed to expectations, good that she was able to have a close game 2 against Akane Yamaguchi. Saina's performance in 2018 will determine if she can win finish on the podium. It will literally be her last chance because age will catch up in 2019 and 2020. PV Sindhu was a disappointment. Sindhu played well in game 1 till 14-14 and she crumbled after that. Sindhu kept making mistakes and lost it mentally in game 2. She strangely gave away many mid court opportunities for Akane to smash her out of the match. She was also guilty of playing many soft strokes which are fine in slow conditions but a disaster in fast conditions like French Open. Her attacks were at the wrong time and she ended up playing to Akane's strengths. Sindhu has a lot of work to do and needs to build tactical awareness like Saina.
Srikanth Kidambi not thinking about No.1 just wants to enjoy his badminton and playing well. Also wants to keep working on his fitness levels. Srikanth still has to improve his performance on slower conditions, he is good in fast conditions. Link: http://bwfworldsuperseries.com/news...bi-tai-singles-finals-yonex-french-open-2017/ Excerpt: FRENCH TOAST FOR KIDAMBI & TAI – SINGLES FINALS: YONEX FRENCH OPEN 2017 A fourth World Superseries crown this year for Kidambi Srikanth; ditto for Tai Tzu Ying. The most successful Superseries singles winners this season completed their conquest of Paris in just over half-an-hour. Japan’s Kenta Nishimoto and Akane Yamaguchi stood no chance against Kidambi and Tai in the Men’s Singles and Women’s Singles finals respectively at the Yonex French Open 2017. Despite the similarity of the verdicts, there were differences aplenty in the details. Kidambi was all business from start to finish – the Indian kept his head down; a monk-like focus evident in his bearing. He took some time to get going, but once he did, Nishimoto started to bleed points. The Indian’s accuracy was unerring – two points late in the match encapsulated the proceedings – the first, a down-the-line hammer blow, got him to 19-12; a cross-court smash found the same spot for match point. Minutes later he had his fourth Superseries crown from five finals this year – the 21-14 21-13 result continuing what has been a sensational year for the Indian. “I’m just happy with the way it went the last couple of weeks,” said Kidambi. “I think he’s played really well this week. I felt it would be a tough match, but in the end I’m happy with the way I played. In the semis and quarters I started slow, but today I wanted to start well. He’s an aggressive player and I didn’t want to give him any chances. “I’m surprised with my fitness. The way we’ve been training the last ten months is doing its part now. I have to continue working like that.” Asked if the No.1 ranking was now on his mind, Kidambi said he wasn’t in the pursuit of points. “Definitely it would be good to get there, but I’m not thinking of it now. I don’t have points to defend, so I don’t want to push myself for (the sake of) rankings. I just want to enjoy playing.” Link 2: https://thefield.scroll.in/855909/h...s-loss-to-become-one-of-the-best-in-the-sport Excerpt: To understand how Srikanth has turned things around in the last three months, let’s go back to that world championships defeat, where Srikanth said he “tried almost everything and nothing worked.” Playing under pressure Srikanth had had a slow start in that match against Son Wan Ho and by the time he found his groove after the interval in the second game, it was too late. Srikanth thrives on his aggressive game and likes to dictate terms. But if his opponent managed to push him on the back-foot early on, he was finding it difficult to mount a comeback. It happened in Glasgow and it happened again in Tokyo. At the Denmark Open last week, Srikanth again came up against Axelsen, who was playing on his home territory. The Dane went on to claim the first game rather easily, 21-14. It looked like there would be an encore all over again, with Srikanth seeming to have no answer to Axelsen’s power play. However, that wasn’t to be. A switch inside Srikanth just flicked after that first game. He was a completely different player in the second game. He began to engage the Dane in longer rallies and started to play with patience, absorbing the pressure and waiting for his opponent to make a mistake. Srikanth won the second game 22-20. The third and deciding game was not even a contest, as the Indian clinched it 21-7 and sent the world champion crashing out. “I think it was important to play the right strategy and be alert in that match,” said India’s chief national coach and Srikanth’s mentor P Gopichand, when asked how his ward had turned things around. “Once he did that, things changed around in the second game.” Arvind Bhat, one of India’s travelling coaches, said that the faster conditions of Denmark and France also played in Srikanth’s favour. “Srikanth likes it when the shuttles are fast because he is a quick player,” Bhat said. “He can come to the net and kill, and he has good smashes. In fast conditions, Srikanth is definitely one of the best of the world.” However, conditions alone cannot win you a crucial match. “What Srikanth is able to do now is keep cool in such pressure situations,” Bhat said. “I saw him very closely this time and I felt that he has grown in maturity as a player. He can play tough matches and be cool when under pressure.” Srikanth’s coolness was visible in the quarter-finals of the French Open as well, when he was up against defending champion Shi Yuqi of China. Shi cruised through the first game 21-8, enough to set the alarm bells ringing. However, Srikanth did not panic and again managed to turn things around. He won the second game 21-19, before again coasting along in the decider 21-9 to take the match. Fitness transformation One of the things Srikanth has worked on in the last three months is to learn how to pace himself, according to Gopichand. This is especially important when competing in back-to-back tournaments like he did in Denmark and France, where he played 10 matches in 12 days. In such times, fitness is key. “He has understood a few more things about his body in terms of how to recover well and prepare for the matches, and that’s what you see today,” Gopichand said. Srikanth himself admitted he was “surprised a little bit” that he had managed to pull off back-to-back Superseries title wins for the second time this year – after Australia and Indonesia – and credited his performance to “the way we have been training in the last nine to 10 months”. Under Indonesian coach Mulyo Handoyo, who came on board in February this year, the Indian players have moved from shorter training sessions to longer ones, which helped them build their stamina. Srikanth's increased fitness levels have been credited to Indonesian coach Mulyo Handoyo (third from left) “There is a distinct change in his fitness levels after the Indonesian coach came in,” said Srikanth’s first coach, Sudhakar Reddy, who trained him before he joined the Gopichand academy in 2009, when he was 16. “When Srikanth was with me, he was very lazy,” Reddy added. “He never used to do proper training, he never used to eat properly. Now he has started doing these things properly on his own.” Work in progress Despite Srikanth’s incredible run this year, both Gopichand and Bhat said he was still far from being a finished product. For one, he still has to work on his slow-court game, where players who have a good defence and like to play long rallies will have an upper hand. “On slow courts, he will have to be far more patient and attack in the longer rallies,” said Bhat. “That’s when your fitness comes into play. He has to fight it out literally in the manner how Sindhu sticks in and plays in the long rallies. This is something he will have to work on.” If Srikanth manages to do that, there’s no stopping him from becoming the best in the world. Reddy believes Srikanth has already one-upped his mentor Gopichand. “I don’t know if he can be compared with Prakash Padukone, but Srikanth is playing at a higher level than Gopi,” he said. “Gopi had only one All England title. When Prakash won the title, no one knew anything about badminton in India.” What Reddy was trying to say is that Srikanth is in similar territory to the one Padukone found himself in during the 80s, doing what no other badminton player had done in India. From winning the China Open in 2014 to bagging a record four Superseries titles in 2017, it’s unchartered territory for an Indian shuttler. An Olympic medal is perhaps the only milestone that still stands between Srikanth and the status of a legend. He’s got almost three years to work towards it.
A few world championship gold medals also thrown in would help tremendously. I would like to see him get them. Put a stop to all these arguments about 'legend' status.
PV Sindhu on the other hand is good in slow conditions and needs to work on playing in fast conditions. The majority of SS tournaments are on fast courts, also why Sindhu struggles on the circuit. Link: https://thefield.scroll.in/855799/b...u-stood-no-chance-in-french-superseries-semis Excerpt: By playing soft strokes on a fast court, Sindhu stood no chance in French Superseries semis Yamaguchi took 13 points in a row to first clinch the opening game and then open up a 6-0 lead in the second and there was a definitive pattern to her play. Her strokes were flatter and she played with a faster hand speed, while Sindhu was barely keeping the shuttle in play with little incisiveness as she lost 21 of the 23 points. Same flaw It was the same flaw in Sindhu’s game that Nozomi Okuhara had exploited in the epic world championship final where there was very little to separate both the players in that 110-minute encounter. While the eventual champion played sharper strokes, the Indian was guilty of playing the looping drops that were easy to retrieve while she failed to execute any of her trademark smashes. Despite that, the slower conditions kept her in the hunt in Glasgow. But on Saturday, the fast courts in Paris meant that any of those weak strokes were punished severely. It is not that Sindhu or the coaching staff doesn’t understand the problem. Soon after the World Championship, the world No 2 worked on her hand speed and the advantages were seen in the Korea Superseries where she beat Okuhara to avenge the Glasgow loss. But she was guilty of playing the soft strokes against Chen Yufei in the first round of Denmark Open and once again in Paris against Yamaguchi. And it was always going to be difficult to defend them on these fast courts. “I tried to give my best,” Sindhu told reporters after the match. “In the first game it was 14-14 and then I gave her continuous points. I think my strokes were going mid-court and she was able to finish the shuttle. “I could have played better at the start of the second game. I could have put the shuttle in the court more but there were too many unforced errors and overall it wasn’t my day. “Yamaguchi’s defence is very good. I have seen her play in many matches and her defence is very good. She was taking all my smashes today. I could have mixed it up but overall I was playing more attacking. I felt I should have changed a bit more especially in the second half of the first game a little more but overall she played well,” she added. Playing catch-up Sindhu did try to mix things up in the second game and even tried to prolong the rallies. But that made little difference as the pace at which Yamaguchi returned the shuttle only forced the Indian to play catch-up and she ended up making more errors in the bargain. “Nothing worked for me. Where I could have got points, with my tap and smashes, I was making mistakes,” Sindhu said, adding the near flawless game of Yamaguchi added to the pressure on her. In Tai Tzu Ying, Ratchanok Intanon, Yamaguchi and even Chen Yufei, Sindhu is going to face players who are shorter, fast movers on the court and rely on their quicker hands and sharp strokes and she would have to address this issue at the earliest in order to consistently win against these players.
Indian women have won the majority of medals at the big tournaments. They are mentally stronger and have been consistent with results. We will see if 2018 is a turning point for the men. Indian Medals Thomas Cup 3 Bronze 1952 1955 1979 Uber Cup 4 Bronze 1957 1960 2014 2016 WC 7 Medals (5 Bronze and 2 Silver) 1983 MS Prakash Padukone Bronze 2011 WD Jwala Gutta/Ashwini Ponappa Bronze 2013 WS PV Sindhu Bronze 2014 WS PV Sindhu Bronze 2015 WS Saina Nehwal Silver 2017 WS PV Sindhu Silver and Saina Nehwal Bronze Olympics (1 Silver and 1 Bronze) 2012 WS Saina Nehwal Bronze 2016 WS PV Sindhu Silver
I think Sindhu struggles against faster moving players. who also have a good attack. We saw it in the Olympics when Sindhu faced Carolina, and in the Worlds, when she faced Okuhara. Both Saina and Sindhu consistently struggle with the Japanese players because their shots keep coming back, and they have the attack to hurt their defence, which isn't as good as theirs. I think Sindhu needs to focus on her speed and defense. Her attack is more than qualified. Now she needs to focus on the defence to patch up the hole in her game. Sindhu has world class attacking and defensive skills, but that defense is lacking compared to players like Okuhara or Yamaguchi
Can someone help me identify the SS tournaments which have slow conditions. Grade 2 Level 2 1.All England Open 2018 2. Indonesia Open 2018 3. China Open 2018 Grade 2 Level 3 1.Malaysia Open 2018 2.Japan Open 2018 3.Denmark Open 2018 4.French Open 2018 5.China Masters 2018 Grade 2 Level 4 1.Malaysia Masters 2018 2.Indonesia Masters 2018 3.India Open 2018 4.Thailand Open 2018 5.Singapore Open 2018 6.Korea Open 2018 Slow 7.Hong Kong Open 2018
All England is slow, as they make sure that drift doesn't come into play at all. Indonesia last venue was fast, don't know about the newly renovated venue.
Sindhu has pretty clumsy movement and as a result, not a really good defense. Its because of her size, not sure how much she can do about it, really. I think a strategic adjustment against the Japanese WS players could suffice, trying to take away the flat, fast shots from them...and work on her flexibility and strength as much as possible, try to take a page out of Axelsen's book
The Legends’ Vision World Tour 2017 will visit India on November 4, 2017 http://legends.yonex.com/events/india/
PV Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, Kidambi Srikanth to compete in Badminton Senior National Championship PTI | Nov 1, 2017, 17:34 IST Almost all the top Indian shuttlers, including K Srikanth, PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal, will be seen in action in the seven-day Senior National Badminton Championship which begins in Nagpur on Thursday. Besides Olympic medallists Sindhu and Saina, the championship will see Srikanth who is in red-hot form after becoming the first Indian and fourth in the world to win four Super Series titles in a calendar. No doubt, Srikanth will be the favourite to win the title in the men’s singles. In the women’s singles, Saina and Sindhu may clash in some stage, which will be a rare occassion for the badminton fans to relish. Other top Indian shuttlers who will be taking part in the championships include HS Prannoy, Ajay Jayaram, Sai Praneeth B, Sameer Verma, Sourabh Verma, Parupalli Kashyap and Danial Farid in men’s singles and Rituparna Das and Anura Prabhudesai in women’s singles. Over 400 players from 29 states and 2 union territories will take part in the event. Srikanth, Prannoy, Jayaram, Sai Praneeth, Verma brothers, Kashyap and Farid have been given direct entry to the pre-quarterfinals in men’s singles. Similarly, Sindhu, Saina, Rituparna and Anura will start the tournament from the pre-quarterfinals in women’s singles. In men’s doubles, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy/Chirag Shetty, Manu Attri/Reddy B, Arjun M R/Ramchandran Shlok and the top pair from the latest BAI rankings have been handed a direct entry to the quarterfinals. In women’s doubles, Ashwini Ponnappa/Reddy N Sikki, Sanjana Santosh/Arathi Sara Sunil, Jakkampudi Meghana/S Ram Poorvisha and a top pair from latest BAI rankings will start the tournament from the quarterfinals. In mixed doubles, Pranaav Jerry Chopra/Reddy N Sikki, Reddy B Sumeeth/Ashwini Ponnappa, top and second ranked pair from the latest BAI rankings have been handed a direct entry to the quarterfinals. The 82nd edition, which will continue till November 8 at the Divisional Sports Complex at Mankapur, here is being held under the aegis of Badminton Association of India and Maharashtra Badminton Association. There will be five events — men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles and mix doubles and team championship — in the tournament. The total prize money for the event is Rs 60 lakh — the highest ever in the history of the Senior Nationals. The winner in men’s and women’s singles as well as the doubles pairs will receive Rs 2 lakhs each while corresponding runners-up will get Rs 1.5 lakh. Source : https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com...minton-championships/articleshow/61409442.cms
