What is the law on 'not trying'?

Discussion in 'Rules / Tournament Regulation / Officiating' started by Hickton, Aug 25, 2019.

  1. Hickton

    Hickton Regular Member

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    So after Ahsan (I think) was warned for nor trying his best all the time in the WC final today I have had a quick look through the laws and can't see anything specific on this. Is there a law or can the umprire use discetion and call it as misconduct? One for phihag :)
     
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  2. Desireless

    Desireless Regular Member

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    Ya I can’t believe he made that call...good thing MA had the discipline to not get rattled by that.
     
  3. phihag

    phihag Regular Member

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    If you look in the laws themselves, all you'll find is a generic
    The player shall not 16.6.4) be guilty of misconduct not otherwise covered by the Laws of Badminton.

    The ITTOs elaborate what is meant here:
    Finally, the Player's Code of Conduct defines the actual misbehavior:
    This referencing is a little bit harder to read, but keeps the laws small, and ensures that any wording chance in one document does not necessitate changes in a lot of others.

    Of course, what exactly is "best efforts" is decided by the umpire. For example, a world-class player lifting to the halfcourt without pressure – or serving into the net three times in a row – is clearly not showing best efforts, but in a lower-level junior game, that can happen. In serious cases, the referee will also be involved.

    Not showing their best efforts in a finals game is somewhat unusual. In general, possible reasons for a player not to play their best are:
    • In the final match of a group stage format, they'd rather play the #1 of another group than the #2.
    • The player has bet money against themselves, or is colluding with somebody who is.
    • The player's association/club/... profits if the opponents win. For example, the player may have already qualified for the Olympics, and their opponent from the same country will only qualify if they win.
    • A personal spat with the association/club/...; for example if the player is going to transfer, and the match decides whether that club gets demoted a league.
    As spectators, we want to see honest matches. While BWF and other federations try to avoid the above circumstances, players must play to win.

    A player just having an off day (e.g. Antonsen losing a game 3-21) or maybe not being 100% at their best (they may have an injury or be sick) is not sufficient grounds to warn the player. Umpires should be careful in not warning players just because of a number of bad rallies. Thankfully, this warning is rather rare in general.
     
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  4. Hickton

    Hickton Regular Member

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    Thanks for the clarification.

    I often see players 'not trying' when they have almost no chance of winning an end and saving energy for the next end. Lin Dan comes to mind.
     
  5. phihag

    phihag Regular Member

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    That is still showing best efforts to win a match. If given the chance, Lin Dan would certainly be content to win the rally or even game. This rule is to discourage players from losing intentionally.
     
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  6. Hickton

    Hickton Regular Member

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    Then that implies to me that the umpire today was wrong to warn Ashan.
     
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  7. stradrider

    stradrider Regular Member

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    No, it's the umpire of the match who decides how much effort is too little effort. If player don't play his best and umpire believes player not using his best effort to win the match he is in the right to warn the player ;)...
     
  8. yuquall

    yuquall Regular Member

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    So what should the players do in this situation?
     
  9. stradrider

    stradrider Regular Member

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    Use more effort?
     
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  10. yuquall

    yuquall Regular Member

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    Like how much is more effort? If the players are certain they can't win G2 and don't want to waste too much energy for G3. Can they just come up to umpire and ask "could you give the opponents the last 4 points?" so they can just conserve energy for the decider?
     
  11. stradrider

    stradrider Regular Member

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    This:
    Throwing away points is also delay play. You can preserve energy by not diving and smashing every shot, but you should continue playing reasonably well. Badminton is the game of fitness as much as everything else. If you are not fit enough to play three games you should not be in world championships. Throwing away the game is also bad for representation of the sport, there are spectators and tv broadcasting, the whole world is watching...
     
  12. thyrif

    thyrif Regular Member

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    What I found interesting is in the MD final, end of the second game, Ahsan and Setiawan started throwing the game, not putting in any effort to conserve energy for the third game. Intentionally lifting short, not defending, and hitting the shuttle way outside. They got called out for it (we all remember the sportsmanship in the group stage of the London Olympics, where they were both trying to lose the entire match), as the rules state sportsmanship requires fighting for every point.

    What do you find acceptable? Can you just intentionally hit the last three rallies in the net or out to save energy for the third game? If so, can you start doing that when you're 11-3 behind? Where is the line? If it is not, is it okay to just half-ass the points?
     
  13. Hassefar60

    Hassefar60 Regular Member

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    I think if one considers this a problem, it is only a symptom of the real problem: That doing it makes sense. That was also the issue at the Olympics: That losing on purpose actually made sense.

    But it is a problem when they don’t apply the rule properly to certain CHN vs CHN MD matches and also try to silence players that suggest that something is fishy.
     
  14. Justin L

    Justin L Regular Member

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    Why mentioned only CHN vs CHN MD matches as if no other nationalities have done it (don't bait me to cite them, you should know if you've been following badminton closely)? You mean it's 'wrong' only when CHN players do it but not others?
     
  15. Hassefar60

    Hassefar60 Regular Member

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    No, absolutely not. Just tried to keep it short.
    I cannot cite them but I am aware that CHN is not the only nation doing it (I do think they are the most obvious though). And this is as big a problem as it has been in the past. But there are two particular examples that I did see recently of CHN MD. One in this tournament, and one in China Open last year, which was grotesque. So I used that as an example.
    And my point was just that that is a much bigger problem than throwing a set.
     
  16. Justin L

    Justin L Regular Member

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    Aren't you aware that before the WC, both Liu Cheng and Zhang Nan have been playing non-stop but with different partners recently after splitting, and both of them just came over from the JPN Akira Masters - Liu Cheng after finishing his semifinals on Saturday and Zhang Nan after the Final on Sunday? I'm sure the two were so tired it's amazing they could make it to the QFs, so what kind of fighting badminton can we humanly expect from them, esp when Zhang Nan/Ou Xuanyi are scheduled to play in Belarus Int'l this week.

    In case you claimed ignorance, both Zhang Nan/Ou Xuanyi and Liu Cheng/Huang Kaixiang, two newly formed MD pairs have a lot of work to do and many tournaments to play just to catch up with their fellow MD pairs who are already well ahead of them in the race to Tokyo 2020. It's particularly pressing, almost a do-or-die for them to start accumulating ranking points in the remaining 8 months of the OG QF period. Please spare a thought for them, their career is sort of at stake, if their new partnerships don't work out, they can forget about going to Tokyo 2020 and even have to start from scratch again with yet new partners.
     
  17. samkool

    samkool Regular Member

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    there's a difference between throwing a game vs. throwing a match like at london 2012.

    it would be hard for bwf/ioc/any governing body to justify penalizing players for throwing a game when they still win the match.

    this needs to be clarified in the rules under 'tanking'.
     
    #17 samkool, Aug 26, 2019
    Last edited: Aug 26, 2019
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  18. Cesium

    Cesium Regular Member

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    I think this is an inherent flaw to the Best-of match system. Best solution is change the match to something like: first to 40 points or something
     
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  19. Yoji

    Yoji Regular Member

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    So much excuses for the problem made by their own country?

    Then you think its whose fault that Tanaka/Yonemoto is truly injured yet will receive 'no' points ..?

    yet someone who is fakely injured can get away with Bronze medal
     
  20. stradrider

    stradrider Regular Member

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    How will it improve the situation from the usual score system?
     

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