[transcript]
Hi everyone, today we’ll be breaking down An Se Young’s badminton strategy that helped her win the 2024 Paris Olympics. This is one of our most highly requested videos for a pretty good reason.
With a world championship and an Olympic gold at only 22 years old, An Se Young has a phenomenal chance at becoming the women’s singles GOAT.
Let’s jump into the strategy that makes An Se Young unstoppable.
–
An Se Young’s strategy centers around punishing loose shots played at the front.
To accomplish this, she starts with moving her opponent around the court. What makes An Se Young particularly good is how she does this.
When you watch An Se Young play, you’ll notice that she opts for very fast and flat pushes and punch clears to the back.
The idea of doing this is to force her opponents to jump out and potentially be caught out of position.
This is particularly effective in women’s singles because most females don’t have the power to jump quickly and produce steep angles.
As a result, most women’s singles players will end up playing a flatter shot while slightly falling backwards.
With this idea in mind, An Se Young often capitalizes on her opponent’s need to recover with quick cross blocks that are either outright winners (An Se Young cross blocks) or force her opponent to play slow nets that she can punish with drives and deceptions.
If there’s no opportunity, then she will continue to play flat pushes to the back and repeat the process. And if her opponents opt to play clears instead, An Se Young is totally content with rallying.
–
Since An Se Young’s focus is on the net and midcourt, we rarely see her change pace in the backcourt.
Instead, her goal in the backcourt is to remain stable, opting only for clears, slices, and half-smashes that don’t require her to move her body much.
Now it’s important to note that despite not changing pace, An Se Young still has exceptional variety that keep her opponents guessing. Just look at how many different high quality shots she can play!
So even though she does not play monster smashes or deceptive drops, her opponents still need to respect all six corners when lifting to the back.
–
Overall, this strategy combined with the fact that An Se Young is currently the most efficient women’s singles player and mentally very patient makes her unstoppable.
Her elite body control and footwork allows her to play a controlling style that puts pressure on her opponents as they burn stamina trying to keep up with An Se Young’s pace.
And because An Se Young’s opponents know that they’ll ultimately lose in a battle of attrition, as long as An Se Young is not injured, they are pressured to end the rally early and ultimately make more mistakes trying to play risky shots.
Additionally, what makes An Se Young levels above her opponents is that she is able to play other styles very effectively as well.
If she wants to change pace, she can. If she wants to play long rallies with high clears and lifts, she can as well. But the feeling is always that An Se Young is in control while her opponents try to force something.
What do you think of An Se Young? Do you think she can become the women’s singles GOAT?
Let us know in the comments below. Additionally, if you liked this video, don’t forget to hit the like and subscribe button so you don’t miss out on our future content!