Kunlavut Vitidsarn

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!
 
KV seems to still be improving since the last activity in this tread. He won German open, he won SEA games. He defeated the WC LKY with ease. He destroyed Heo Kwang Hee in Thomas cup, who himself looked very strong in other matches (vs Axelsen for example). The future is looking good.
 
Kunlavut is quickly becoming very good. He has excellent court coverage and defense, he is good at controlled grinding play. Attack can be good at times like today in G3 vs VA he scored some nice x-court round the head smash, but sometimes his attacks go out.
He can eat attacking players like LKY and LZJ for breakfast.
Very few players can grind down KV, Naraoka recently managed to do so, but it took a crazy effort:D
 
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this rising star got some nerves to force fast paced crosscourt exchange to breakdown the impenetrable giant yesterday, including several great length and height of crosscourt backhand clears. well done
 
MS in badminton is taking a U-turn, in 2021 season fast attacking players like LKY and LZJ were on the rise, but more recently strong defensive players like Kunlavut and Kodai are the upcoming star players in MS, it is funny how things can change so quickly.
 
My thoughts after watching the gold medal match at the Olympics:

I think a huge advantage that Viktor had, that KV didn't have, was battling against LD and LCW when they were still near the top of their game (LD and LCW were still at the top between 2012 to 2014). Another advantage that Viktor had was his battles against Chen Long, and remember that Chen Long was able to duke it out with LD and LCW back between 2012 to 2014 as well. And finally, Viktor had the fortune (or misfortune) of battling against prime Momota. I consider prime Momota to be before his car accident, and looking at the H2H, KV only played Momota once before Momota's car accident: https://www.tournamentsoftware.com/...33E64CC&T1P1MemberID=64032&T2P1MemberID=89785. So in a nutshell, KV never really had a chance to play against prime LD/LCW/Chen Long/Momota.

As for KV, he is lacking something that Momota had. I think sometimes badminton is a battle of matchups and styles. Some players struggle against another player's style. It is well known that while the Minions in their prime could beat any other MD team, they struggled against Endo/Watanabe. I think KV has trouble reading Viktor's game, and it's apparent not just today, it was apparent in the 2022 WC finals against Viktor too. On the other hand, Momota would read Viktor like a book and Viktor struggled to read Momota's shots. I would say Viktor's prime started in 2017 when he won the WC. Despite winning the WC in 2017, you can see Viktor struggle time and time again against Momota before Momota's car accident. When Momota played Viktor, it was like a forgone conclusion that Viktor would lose. KV is the opposite of Momota. KV has trouble reading Viktor's shots, while Viktor can read KV easily.

Maybe in a different timeline, if KV had the experience to play against prime LD/LCW/Chen Long/Momota, it would have prepared him much better for today.
 
Just got home from the arena and was very disappointed with the match… Kunlavut won the toss and chose the far (windier) side so he has the better end if it goes to three, but he gave up that opening game so easily that Viktor wasn’t tired at all. In the second game, he tried those deceptive pushes to the opponent’s forehand that worked so well against SYQ and LZJ but Viktor read him like a book; I think Kunlavut figured out the backhand side was more vulnerable, and generally how to make the rallies longer a bit too late in the match (like 18-8 or something). I think Kunlavut needs to be more consistent and win more on the world tour just to keep getting that experience on comebacks and all that can be useful on these big stages. We know he can win and he has that mindset, just gotta push more & more as always!
 
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