[transcript]
In the semifinals of the 2024 Japan Open, the 19 year old from France, Alex Lanier, pulls through in a huge upset match against the world number one, Shi Yu Qi.
Well, how exactly did he do it?
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First, we want to go over some adjustments that Alex’s coach gave to him.
The first adjustment made by Alex was to focus on a shorter swing in the back.
The reason for this was to make sure he can follow up quickly after hitting.
A shorter swing enables you to recover quicker after you swing as you are using less of your body. This is crucial for following up on shots, and allows you to take the shuttle earlier.
Look how the shorter swing enabled Alex to put pressure on Shi Yu Qi in the midcourt and frontcourt, often initiating the spin net and the drive battles.
You can see in these rallies Alex is able to initiate the drive battles.
Also, his ability to initiate the net game.
The second adjustment said by the coach was to play more deceptions.
The reason why you play deceptions is to break your opponents’ rhythm. The more you can break their rhythm, the more effort they have to spend to get that rhythm back.
If you look at this rally, you can see that Shi makes the correctional split step.
This is very energy sapping, especially when you start to account for the loss of body control from Shi when lunging deep into the frontcourt.
And, this is all on top of the fatigue that Shi has already built up from the Olympics, and the rounds prior to playing Alex Lanier at the Japan Open.
In this rally, you can really see how low Shi takes the net.
The same can be said for Alex though. In the first game Alex makes many correctional split steps in anticipation of the back, but seeing this, Shi Yu Qi plays back to the net, many times with deception.
This breaks Alex’s footwork and rhythm, and causes him to lose many points.
However, in the interval between the first and second game, Alex’s coach tells him that if he nets, stay at the net, because the most dangerous shot is if they play back to the net.
In men’s singles, if you control the net, you will win the game.
That is why in these rallies, you can see Alex Lanier netting and ready to move back to the net.
Here Alex is not too worried about his backcourt, if he continues to take the net high, he can control Shi Yu Qi.
Watch him repeatedly target Shi’s forehand and anticipate the net.
If you take a look at his feet, he is always ready to move forward.
This is the same as 2008 Lin Dan.
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The final adjustment is mental toughness. While it may not be the most exciting, it is the most important.
This is because the pace Alex is playing at is very difficult to sustain. It requires a great deal of physical effort, but also needs a lot of mental effort to tell yourself to keep the pace up.
When you get tired, it is also very easy to make unforced errors. However in this game, Alex keeps his errors to a minimum and makes the points very difficult for Shi to earn.
Because Alex was making these points difficult to earn, and he was constantly playing these rallies at a fast pace, making Shi Yu Qi chase the shuttle, he was gradually dwindling down the Chinese player’s stamina. Thus, leading to more unforced errors.
There is also another point we want to mention that influenced the coach’s decision making. And, that was the drift.
Based on the commentary, the drift seemed to be blowing from the side nearest to us, to the other side. This made it harder for the player on the side closest to us to control the depth on their shots.
There was also a significant side drift going from right to left on your screen.
However, we will mainly focus on the front to back drift.
We can see in the first set, Alex loses because of the playstyle. He is trying to control and move Shi Yu Qi around on the side that is more difficult to control due to the drift.
However, in the third set, he makes a significant adjustment.
Before the 11 points interval, Alex is on full attack.
Notice the difference between these two styles.
The drift increases the speed of the shuttle, exchanging control for more power. And that is exactly what Alex did to get the lead on the quote on quote worse end.
This ultimately gave him confidence when he switched onto the other end where he begins to play more deceptively.
These are the three points that stood out to us from Alex’s coach. But, we also want to give a little insight of our own into this.
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There was a difference in shot speed between the two players, especially in the backcourt. Alex Lanier had very fast shots that made it difficult for Shi Yu Qi to control the bird.
The “harder” your shot, the more difficult it will be for your opponent to control the shuttle.
To produce this, you need to focus on three things.
First you need to focus on speeding up your swing. The faster your swing, the faster the shot.
Second, focusing on your timing with the shuttle. It is not enough to only have a fast swing.
If you take a look at these pro players, notice how they follow the shuttle first, and then they hit. This almost always guarantees that they play it in their sweet spot on their racket.
Finally, try to shorten your swing so you don’t lose control.
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If you guys watched the game, you probably would’ve noticed that Alex is playing a lot quicker than Shi Yu Qi.
This is one of the problems with the Chinese shuttler.
Just like in the Olympics against Kunlavut Vitidsarn, it is very difficult for him to deal with faster play.
While it is fine for Shi Yu Qi to play his control style, we believe that he did not change the pace enough.
If you constantly play at the same pace, it becomes too easy for your opponents to guess your shot. Sometimes you need to add in a full smash to make sure your opponent does not get too comfortable.
This played a big role in Alex Lanier’s ability to control the net so easily in this match, because Shi had to defend further back.
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Thank you guys for watching!
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