Last entry I was discussing about the over the head smash. There was a little bit of difference between the Chinese and the Malaysian / Indonesian styles of play. The Chinese style has a little bit more reach, which means the player does not need to turn around and use his backhand as frequently. But, what about the forehand side? Let’s discuss.

I am going to be using the same 2 matches for analysis. The first one is the match between Jonathan Christie against Shi Yuqi and the second is the classic match between Lee Chong Wei and Lin Dan. These 2 matches are classics where both players were forced to go the distance and use every trick at their disposal to win it.

In the first snapshot, Christie hits a forehand lob. He hits it without a body turn, with the footwork being a 2 step to the forehand corner move. His right leg is behind and his rear leg is trailing. He swings and hits before skipping back to the centre of the court using the same footwork but in the opposite direction.

In this second snapshot, Christie executes the same move, with his footwork being the same and the swing is also the same.

In the 3rd snapshot, Christie does the same shot with the same footwork and swing. The main thing to pay attention to here is the arm position as he swings. There is a slight bend to his elbow, which means the pivot point for his swing is likely his shoulder as his elbow also turns with the swing.

Now let’s examine his opponent, Shi Yuqi’s movement and swing for this move.

In this snapshot, Shi Yuqi uses the same footwork as Christie. He moves towards the forehand side with 2 steps and hits without a body turn. The feet are positioned in the same way as he swings to hit.

The second snapshot sees Shi Yuqi doing the same thing. This time, he hits the shot earlier before his right foot has landed. The slight change in timing is intended to throw Christie off. Hitting it earlier would mean Christie’s split step has not landed, and he would have to scramble to retrieve that shot.

The 3rd snapshot sees Shi Yuqi hitting the same shot, but this time he is taking it a bit lower than usual. Again, the intention here is to put Christie off. Taking the shot a fraction of a second later would mean Christie’s split step has landed too early, and he would have lost the bounce from the split step as he finally moves to retrieve the shot.

Shi Yuqi puts in interesting variations in timing to his hit to put Christie off. The impact of these variations are to throw the opponent’s timing off. That means making the opponent mistime his split step so that he is unable to use the bounce from the split step to move. Instead, the opponent would have to put in an extra small step to move AFTER his split step. This requires a whole lot more effort to move and tires out the opponent quicker.

For a very fit player like Christie, he can do this without problems. But, as the match goes on, this will definitely take a toll on him. Eventually, he would feel it, usually in the rubber game. And that is when Shi Yuqi would be able to attack with ease as Christie tires.

Han Jian uses this same concept to play against all his opponents. He mentions that in varying the timing like this, it makes his opponent work harder. Often, they do not even know why it feels so tiring to play against him. It is this subtle variation in timing which causes so much problems to the opponent. Of course, there are ways to counter this, but that we will save for another day.

Now, let’s get back to the topic at hand. We will now look at Lee Chong Wei’s footwork and movement to hit the forehand lob.

In this snapshot, Lee Chong Wei hits a lob with the same footwork, a 2 step movement to the corner and then swinging to hit.

In this snapshot, we can see the same movement, same footwork. We can clearly see Lee Chong Wei bending his elbow as he hits, similar to Christie.

Now let’s look at Lin Dan. Because Lin Dan is left handed, all his swings and footwork are a mirror image to the players discussed earlier.

In this snapshot, Lin Dan uses the same footwork and movement to hit. In this shot, we can see Lin Dan bending his elbow as he swings to hit.

Lin Dan hitting the forehand lob further out.

In the second snapshot, we see Lin Dan doing the same movement, and we also see the elbow bent as he hits.

After the analysis, there is not much difference between the 2 styles when hitting the forehand side lob with no body turn. Shi Yuqi does it with his arms straight, which is what Han Jian has taught us. Lin Dan does it the same way as Christie and Lee Chong Wei.

The difference between having the arm straight and not is that the swing to hit pivots at the shoulder or the wrist. Having the swing pivot at the shoulder means a bigger swing is needed to hit. Having the swing pivot at the wrist meaning the swing is smaller, but in order to achieve the same power, the spin needs to be faster. Ultimately, the results are nearly identical.

The difference lies the mobility. Having a smaller swing means the player can recover from the shot quicker and move again. That just means that Shi Yuqi has a quicker recover after the shot than the rest. Lee Chong Wei being a natural athelete is just as quick.

That’s all for this entry.

Until the next update, eat well, get plenty of rest, and keep the badminton going!