Shamwow
Regular Member
I also have high expectations for the youngster in the future ever since I saw him toying with Popov at the World Junior Championships. That guy is insanely talented to have won the WJC 3x in a row. It's always a joy to watch his matches, especially his net game and defence. He's got a lot of potential and we all can see that. Relatively speaking his game is very mature for his age and he's got plenty of time to get better and to work on his weaknesses. One being his attack.
He's never needed to rely on his attack so far to win most of his matches with his deceptive net play, defence and smarts but when he's up against players who are well more rounded like VA then it becomes a big issue. We've seen his attack not working well against the VA or do anything at all to be honest in their past encounters which did hurt to see. It was a stark contrast to when Lakshya Sen was against VA in the All England. Sen's attack combined with his explosiveness can hurt VA and won plenty of points with it, it's actually one of his greatest strengths that led him to win one set against the legendary LD, albeit past his prime but still impressive none the less, at 16 too I think.
Anyways KV in the last match against Kidambi has showed that he can adapt and play more aggressively which shows good progress, he's even changed to a head heavier racket (nf800->88d pro) to help slightly more with this. Overall I have high expectations and can't wait to see his progress in the future!
He's never needed to rely on his attack so far to win most of his matches with his deceptive net play, defence and smarts but when he's up against players who are well more rounded like VA then it becomes a big issue. We've seen his attack not working well against the VA or do anything at all to be honest in their past encounters which did hurt to see. It was a stark contrast to when Lakshya Sen was against VA in the All England. Sen's attack combined with his explosiveness can hurt VA and won plenty of points with it, it's actually one of his greatest strengths that led him to win one set against the legendary LD, albeit past his prime but still impressive none the less, at 16 too I think.
Anyways KV in the last match against Kidambi has showed that he can adapt and play more aggressively which shows good progress, he's even changed to a head heavier racket (nf800->88d pro) to help slightly more with this. Overall I have high expectations and can't wait to see his progress in the future!