This week during training, Han Jian was in charitable mood. I had a busy week, and only confirmed with him that training was going ahead at 3am on Saturday morning. He guessed I would be exhausted since I was still awake and texted him at that time, so he let me off easy and took additional time to train Fred. During tactical training, Han Jian moved Fred to all 4 corners of the court before landing a kill shot in an open space. Tears of nostalgia swelled up in my eyes, seeing Han Jian doing his thing once again, making his opponent scamper all over court. In modern times, the closest player who did the same approach is Momota. What a sight it was. Let’s discuss this tactic.

In this week’s training Han Jian demonstrated to Fred one of his favourite tactics, which is moving the opponent to all 4 corners of the court. Han Jian starts off by sending an attacking lob to Fred’s backhand side rear court. Then he sends 2 consecutive drop shots to the backhand side front court. He follows that up by a lob to the forehand side rear court. And then another lob to the backhand side rear court. The final killshot was a fast drop to the forehand side front court.

The attacking choices he made here are very interesting to analyze. In this short rally, he uses all 4 corners of the court to gain a point. 4 shots were sent to the same side, which is the opponent’s backhand side. One shot was sent to the forehand side to make the opponent run. And for the kills shot, it went to the final corner which he has not yet attacked.

Han Jian did not use the full diagonal of the court. He was clearly making Fred focus on the backhand side of the front court by sending 2 consecutive shots there. When Fred started to stand a bit closer to the front, he unleashed 2 lobs, sending the shots to the left and then right of the rear court. This made Fred unstable, and as Fred’s return was not good, he was prepared for a smash or some form of attack. Instead Han Jian went for a slice drop to his forehand side. The slice put Fred off as he was ready to focus on the backhand side of the front court as the shots went there twice earlier. This time, it went the other side instead.

Granted, this is a training exercise where we are required to lift the shots to Han Jian. If it was a competitive match, the opponent would still be sending these shots to these corners while running around to retrieve the shots we sent to him. But, it just shows how difficult it is to defend against this type of attack.

By sending pushing our opponent to all 4 corners of the court, we are forcing him to run. He will find it difficult to send returns to good positions where he can stretch us. This allows us to get into a position where we can send the shots to where we want the opponent to run to. The opponent will have to deal with this, and that is precisely what this training exercise was designed to do.

When we are able to dictate play, we will be sending the shuttle to those positions, and the opponent will be returning the shots as best he can. This will often mean his returns are not going to be far enough, high enough or fast enough. This allows us to continue applying the pressure, by sending the shots to places where it is hard for the opponent to reach. With each shot, the opponent will be struggling to reach the shot a little bit more. When the time comes where we can see the opponent is not able to take up a good defensive position in the centre, that is the time to attack.

There are many layers still to this simple explanation. In this training exercise, Han Jian added a mental aspect as well as the deception. He led Fred into a false sense of security by thinking he will be hitting the shot to his backhand side. Fred was prepared to move to his backhand side due to that. Fred’s positioning was good for the final kill shot. He was still right in the centre of the court, but he was clearly prepared to move to his backhand side. It was right then Han Jian attacked his forehand front court side with a slice drop. The deception threw Fred off completely and gave Fred no chance to reach that shot.

The training exercise went on for a few more rounds of rallies. Han Jian mixed up the sequence of his shots for the 4 corners, but the results were always the same. This mode of attack which combines the attacking the same side many times with a deception is Han Jian’s favourite mode of attack. The reason is simply because it is so very effective. Han Jian used it to conquer the world. Momota used his variation of it to great success. This works.

That’s all for this entry.

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