2008 Beijing's Super Dan, even better. You know, up until LOG'12, Lin Dan would launch a killer smash at least 50% of the opponent's first lift or clear, or 70 to 80% of the second , or 95 to 100% of the third, but nowadays, esp after the Incheon 2014 Asian Games when he injured his knee, the worse injury in his career,he's become relatively so tame and 'lazy' that his smashes are few and far between, sad to say. I watched the replay of Lee Hyun Il vs Wang Tzu Wei's match in R1 of the ongoing JPN Open, Lee was definitely smashing significantly more than Lin Dan on average, that's how he beat the 15 years younger Wang.
I don't know. There was this little addition to his smash setup in the fall of 2011 which really hit its peak in 2012. A bit more violent swing action than the previous years.
His speed peaked in 2008. His power peaked in late 2011--his smashes at the 2011 SSF were more menacing than I've ever seen them. 2012 was a happy medium of physical and tactical play. Overall level I'd take 2009 Lin Dan though.
What he was doing in 2008, and stopped doing after, is to systematically rush to the net after a smash a push the weak return. It was such an effective weapon! but of course very demanding physically. But it was said at that time that Lin Dan was training so hard other players in the team were tired just looking at him. We cannot expect him to go on training like this nowadays, the motivation to do so is surely absent
Srikanth is doing the above but with a initial smash that is further back of the opponent where the return is weaker.
Don't think Axelsen is 6'4" anymore. When was that measured? When he was 17? Del Potro is 1.99 m and I don't think Axelsen is shorter than Del Potro. Grigor Dimitrov is 6'3" and you think Axelsen is only an inch taller than him? In fact, Axelsen easily looks 6'6" in person. Easily.
Where do you get all that information from? Did you ever see Axelsen stand next to Dimitrov or Del Potro? He looks like about 194 to me. Reasoning: This is a picture from a few days ago. All athletes appear to be wearing similar shoes, so there are no significant differences in heel height. What we know for certain is that Nozomi is about 1,56m, she's constantly standing next to the net poles and is seen to be of that height. We also know that the human head is 1:7,5 to 1:8 in ratio to the overall height of the body https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_proportions. You can measure it yourself. I, for example, am 187cm, my head is roughly 23,5 cm, that's a ration of 1:7,96. If you hold a ruler to your screen from Nozomi's head to Sindhu, you'll see that Sindhu is one head taller than Nozomi. 156cm + 23cm = exactly the 179cm Sindhu is billed at. If you now take your ruler again, align it to be parallel with the corporate logos in the back (Yonex!) from Sindhu to VA, you'll find that Sindhu's head ends at the saddle of Victor's nose, so basically slightly below the middle of Victor's head. If we assume Victor's noggin to be 24cm, and add slightly more than half of that (let's say 13cm) to Sindhu's height we arrive at 192cm. Voila. Yes, I'm a little bored.
Yeah, but back then players did play straight blocks more. Nowadays they predominantly block it cross straight away to stop this from happening. But it's very hard for a right hander to defend a full power smash to the backhand side cross court, though.
Yes you can defend cross court, but not if the smash is too powerful. Then you have no time to do a cross
Its also physically impossible. He just cant stay young forever. Its actually surprising hes still doing as well as he does considering others (Fu HF, foe example) who are of similar age and have trained similarly for long complained about wear and tear (chronic knee pain for Fu).
His current smash is the so-called "Chinese-style" jump smash, where the body faces around 45 degrees away from the net throughout the motion, and where the shoulder does most of the work. The advantage to this technique is that it requires minimal setup, and that it affords a greater degree freedom to play other shots instead of the smash (x-court drop, reverse slice, clear). In 2012, however, LD used mostly the full-rotation scissor-kick smash, which allowed him to generate substantially more power and to transition his momentum into the follow-up most effectively. As a stand-alone shot, the 2012 smash is far superior as a point-winning weapon, no question about that. LD's use of the "chinese-style" smash is a compromise he has had to make due to his decreasing speed--which means he can't get into position as often for a full-rotation smash--as well as his longer recovery time, which means he can't follow up on the smash as well as he used to. Another disadvantage I have noticed, and have experienced myself, with the chinese-style smash is that it makes it significantly harder to go down the line. Lin Dan is most likely affected by this drawback as well, because if you have noticed, he goes like 80% x-court and 20% down the line these days. Compare that to Chen Long for example, whenever CL plays down the line, he's using the full-rotation smash. That's why CL's straight smash from his forehand side is IMO his most formidable weapon.
Think of it this way, if LD's speed has decreased from 100 to 60 then LHY's speed has decreased from 75 to 50. It's a bigger decrease simply because of how fast he used to be. It's like when Usain Bolt is 50 years old his speed decrease will be greater than that of an average guy of the same age.
Jump smashing takes a lot of toll on the knees. So LD not as powerful as before and not jumping as crazy as before is a given. Hey he still made it to the finals of WC for some one whose 1st Final was 2005!!!!! VA was still a little boy of 12. So since the weapons that made him invincible for a good 10 years are gone, probability dictates that he has higher chances of losing tough matches against younger opponents.
Like all grandmasters, LD is perfecting his strokes and movement using is immense mental strength and experience. as of now, he’s preparing for Tokyo 2020. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Frankly,I'm rather skeptical about Lin Dan going to Tokyo 2020, it's quite a stretch and really pushing it as he'll be 37 years old by then. Besides, I reiterate, he'd probably be hard-pushed to earn one of the two Olympic tickets as CHN can easily have two or more MS players ranked above him during the OG qualification period even if he managed to stay within the top 10. And, don't expect any of his teammates to make way for him, it's not going to happen, no need to spell it out.
