Mohd Ahsan / Hendra Setiawan

Discussion in 'Indonesia Professional Players' started by Licin, Aug 31, 2012.

  1. Badmintonmag

    Badmintonmag Regular Member

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    I was referring to J4ckies Post above, who pointed out that Ahsan was nothing special. I just wanted to make clear that pretty much every successful backcourt player had a brilliant net player with him. And I feel that Chandra was doing his job of hard smashing very well, but I don`t see much creativity there. Ahsan is above him in that department.
     
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  2. Yoji

    Yoji Regular Member

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    Ahsan one of the best backcourt player yes and his net play is just as good. Cant say with other backcourt players. I think Gideon also has good netplay.

    Its essential that backcourt players can just play as well in front of the net.
     
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  3. wade

    wade Regular Member

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    Love the way steen describe ahsan's play right here...



    While this one is still my favorite ahsan's performance till now, just beautiful.

     
  4. j4ckie

    j4ckie Regular Member

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    In my eyes there certainly more indications that Chandra was better. Sustained success with different partners - and he was definitely a better net player than Ahsan. While partnered with Sigit, he was actually the one gravitating towards the front, Sigit being famous for his jump smash and all :D apart from Halim Haryanto, I wouldn't say any of that generation were one-dimensional. TG, CW, SB could all play well in all areas of the court, each having his own exceptional qualities (TG at the net, SB with overall incredible shots and technical ability, CW being mentally very strong and a stable player overall).
    Ahsan is certainly a very good player even in a global context, however his complete lack of success outside of his partnership with one of the best players to ever touch a racket makes me hesitate putting him anywhere in the Top20, overall. Maybe Top10 if you only look at "back court" players, although there is no doubt whatsoever that FHF is better if you look at that specific subset (which is a bit murky to define already). In terms of accomplishments, he outdoes the likes of JJS. As a player, I would rate JJS higher. I'd also say Carsten Mogensen was a better talent, although that particular judgement is very debatable and largely based on some personal preference (you can make an argument for both, and neither would combine well with each other's partner, for example).
    Thats not even considering players like KDM/HTK yet. Overall I wouldn't rate him as one of the all-time greats.
     
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  5. ant01

    ant01 Regular Member

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    What does this even mean? I don't think FHF had any real success outside his partnership with CY, I only remember one final with ZSW, so by your logic that means FHF is only a top20 player.

    I've seen all of those players live on numerous occasions, including Olympic and WC events, and I think that Ahsan is the most dangerous "backcourt" player I've seen playing live. He is faster than FHF moving around the court, better at front court play and intercepting, service situation, variation from the back, etc. FHF may be better at defense and raw smashing power, but if you saw what I saw in yesterday's AE final, you wouldn't want to be on the opposite side of the court to Ahsan, especially when he's in the zone.
     
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  6. yuquall

    yuquall Regular Member

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    Are you forgetting FHF partnership with Zhang Nan?

    Ahsan's weakness is his stamina. and injuries.
     
  7. Badmintonmag

    Badmintonmag Regular Member

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    I can understand that rate players like JJS higher. I don`t, because I like Ahsan`s unique playing style a lot. To me, JJS, Chandra etc. are very solid and consistent all-court players. But there biggest strength is hard smashing, consistency and good movement. I have never seen brillance at the net by Chandra. Most backcourt players are very similar, very generic players. Ahsan is different.His biggest weakness was that sometimes he went completely off and produced horrible unforced errors en masse.

    I do not understand however that you critisize Ahsan for only being successful with Setiawan. What has FHF done without Cai Yun (Edit: Ok, pretty successful with Zhang Nan, but few players have a prime with different partners)? Who was JJS without LYD? And saying that for Ahsan is in fact wrong. Hasn`t he carried that Saputro to a silver medal at World Championships? Very strong performance there! And the only time I saw him before he got teamed up with HS, was in Olympics 2012, where he was very young and lost in a good quarterfinal to LYD/JJS with Septono. Septono was clearly the weak link there and Ahsan actually pretty good in that match. So he very much showed that he doesn`t solely depend on Setiawan. Although playing with the master certainly helped ;-)
     
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  8. ant01

    ant01 Regular Member

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    Yes, I did forget :rolleyes: That doesn't change my opinion though, which is that I think Ahsan & Setiawan are the best pair of recent times (despite various factors like not winning OG). Even though I strongly support other pairs, I have to admit to myself that this is the case.

    If I remember right, ZN has won the most major medals out of all the players being discussed (at least across different disciples with different partners) but in my opinion I wouldn't rate him so highly as an individual player, but when in a pair then definitely one of the best.
     
    #588 ant01, Mar 11, 2019
    Last edited: Mar 11, 2019
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  9. j4ckie

    j4ckie Regular Member

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    With Septano, he often was the weak link. Watch the 2011 WC, he was the weakest player in that SF, for example. What I'm getting at is that Chandra, Hendra, Fu all have significant achievements with other partners to prove beyond a doubt that they didn't rely on one particular partner to succeed at the highest level. Same for all players who achieve great success in 2 disciplines, btw, when you just judge them as players (I.e. ZN is definitely an all-time great in doubles, although not really in MD alone, KDM is one of the best overall doubles players of all time without any doubt,....).
    I fully agree that a more back court-oriented player can't always be as decisive as a more net-focused player.

    I think largely our different judgement of Ahsan comes from us valuing different things in back court players - and maybe different judgement of technique, for example, which is always highly subjective and debatable. Personally, I think the effectiveness of the attack from the back is very important, and I rate others higher there - JJS had a real hammer for a smash, and an incredible disguised drop, for example, Mogensen had a deceptively powerful smash and very very good angles and placement (almost never losigg the attack, barely ever countered), FHF had the best smash of all time,....with Ahsan and MGF I'm missing lethality. That doesn't mean you have to thunder the smash to the ground, but they produce comparatively few easy opportunities compared to the others I mentioned imop.
    Again, that's my subjective opinion. The only statement I'd say is an objective fact here is that FHF is provably the better player in a true apples-to-apples comparison.
    I'll finish with a positive about Ahsan, just to reinforce that I don't see him as a bad player at all ;) I think among back court players, he has some of the best lateral movement and is incredibly good in flat around-the-head situations - him being a bit shorter than the average back court specialist and his slightly unusual overhead grip work in his favor there. He also must be one of the best at aggressively inserting pace when opponents underestimate his lateral speed, moving sideways to intercept and then following his attack forward in an L when they think they pushed it too flat to his backhand for an overhead - then notice they were wrong about that :D
    I also respect his ability - similar to FHF - to significantly improve previous weaknesses in his game in a relatively late stage of his career, not staying set in his ways. Also indicates a certain talent, of course - others may also try exactly that, and just fail (e.g. I heard Marcus was trying to improve on his defense - not exactly showing results so far. LYD never was dangerous from the back after ~2011-2012 etc).
     
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  10. ant01

    ant01 Regular Member

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    I still don't understand why you think Ahsan isn't effective from the back court. Effectiveness may mean different things to the both of us, but to me its mainly setting up a weak reply for your partner to kill or setting yourself up to finish the rally. Speed of shot is of course important but not always the number one deciding factor, since all top MD pairs usually have at least one hard smasher.

    Considering those two points I mentioned, I think that Ahsan has always had those qualities by the bucketload, and was clearly demonstrated in this All England. The SF highlight below shows that quite well, and I chose SF since it's against a seeded pair:

     
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  11. Thunder Hand

    Thunder Hand Regular Member

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    What do you mean by "unique playing style" ?
     
  12. Badmintonmag

    Badmintonmag Regular Member

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    I don`t really put that much weight in being successful with different partners. I mean FHF had CY and ZN, Ahsan couldn`t have done that bad with them, they are both All Time Greats. By the way Hendra (of course clearly declined) did absolutely nothing with TBH (which I blame the Malaysian for, just not a good player!).

    You talk about effectiveness of attacking, yet JJS/LYD rallies always seemed to take ages until the shuttle was on the floor. With Ahsan/Setiawan the average rally time is about 5 seconds ;-) Thats in large parts due to Setiawans skills, but Ahsan`s variety helped a lot in my opinion to involve Setiawan. So I don`t see that he produced less opportunities for his partner than Mogensen & Co.

    Thanks for throwing me a bone, but I`m fine with you rating him lower than me ;-) If I had to make a neutral pick for best rear court player, I`d probably go for FHF, either. But behind that Mohammad would be in the mix. And I also think that Ahsan really has developed his game. Very impressed with his last months. Although maybe it could be that he`s just less declined than Hendra...
     
  13. Badmintonmag

    Badmintonmag Regular Member

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    Ahsan is not the typical back-court player, as we already discussed above. He isn`t the hardest smasher, but his variety in attack makes it hard to defend him. Plus he is very capable in service/return situations and net game in general. Additionally he almost never lifts in defence, but almost always tries to turn defense into offense. Thats why rallies with MA/HS are so quickly over. They know how to score.
    The typical backcourt player lifts a lot in defense and relies on his partner to turn things into attack (JJS, YYS, FHF, CW etc.)
     
  14. Yoji

    Yoji Regular Member

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    and if WC is that important, he got silver with Rian so its weird to say that he doesnt have much success outside his partnership with HS when clearly Rian is the weak link. so if it happens only once i will just say that is luck

    but He is the only MD player that has WC medals with 3 different partners since who did that?, wont even say how lousy his partner is.
     
  15. j4ckie

    j4ckie Regular Member

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    The JJS part is also a bit because of the way the game was played back then. There was less focus on the service situation, and players had less qualms about lifting long and high - but if you look what Ahsan does with a decent lift, it's usually not that much. Very rare that he puts one away or sets it up directly for Setiawan to kill, which is what I meant. Other back court players just had more oomph. :D
    Anyhow, I don't think you need to be successful with different partner to be considered as a great, many of the all-time greats haven't really played with more than one partner at all (did Kim Dong Moon ever play MD with someone other than Ha Tae Kwan, for example?) or only at very early or late stages of their career (as did Cai/Fu after the Olympics because of China's philosophy of older players mentoring younger ones)...imop succeeding with several partners is just irrefutable proof that you're an absolutely elite player, and have some of the intangible qualities you should have for successful doubles play (an ability to adapt to your partner, for example). Not a necessity at all, no, and maybe I'm a bit harsh on Ahsan when looking at his performance before Hendra, but him being the weak link when playing with Septano really stuck with me for some reason :D
     
  16. j4ckie

    j4ckie Regular Member

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    I remember someone stating they overheard ZN/FHF in a game break and that Fu was telling ZN to play more long defense over the net player. Maybe in his case it's a different philosophy/way of thinking about the game, no idea about the others....
    What Ahsan is fairly unique in amongst most back court players is how good he is receiving and how he doesn't really seem to try and go to the back of the court. One of the most obvious failures of the Ko/Lee partnership was that Ko was so insistent on getting to the back of the court that he often opened up the net for counters, whichch isn't something I've seen Ahsan do in years now. When he rotates out, it's usually because of Hendra's shot, and not because he himself took off the pressure and then tried to go back.
    MGF tries to do it, but isn't quite as effective, and the same goes for Sonoda, who is probably around Marcus' level at the front (or a bit below), but Kamura is just smashing so badly from the back they can almost never score in that formation.
    FHF improved massively in the net area, especially around 2009 and again 2012 and after, but retained his habits of bending down after receiving (not hunting on his 4th) and swinging with fairly big motions. Probably not dissimilar to Marcus in that regard, although I feel like Marcus hunts the shuttle a bit more, maybe because his shorter stature allows him to stay more upright, who knows.
     
  17. j4ckie

    j4ckie Regular Member

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    I remember someone stating they overheard ZN/FHF in a game break and that Fu was telling ZN to play more long defense over the net player. Maybe in his case it's a different philosophy/way of thinking about the game, no idea about the others....
    What Ahsan is fairly unique in amongst most back court players is how good he is receiving and how he doesn't really seem to try and go to the back of the court. One of the most obvious failures of the Ko/Lee partnership was that Ko was so insistent on getting to the back of the court that he often opened up the net for counters, whichch isn't something I've seen Ahsan do in years now. When he rotates out, it's usually because of Hendra's shot, and not because he himself took off the pressure and then tried to go back.
    MGF tries to do it, but isn't quite as effective, and the same goes for Sonoda, who is probably around Marcus' level at the front (or a bit below), but Kamura is just smashing so badly from the back they can almost never score in that formation.
    FHF improved massively in the net area, especially around 2009 and again 2012 and after, but retained his habits of bending down after receiving (not hunting on his 4th) and swinging with fairly big motions. Probably not dissimilar to Marcus in that regard, although I feel like Marcus hunts the shuttle a bit more, maybe because his shorter stature allows him to stay more upright, who knows.
     
  18. j4ckie

    j4ckie Regular Member

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    If you count getting absolutely smashed in a WC SF as a success, props, then we have many very successful players in the world, but overall he didn't WIN anything with anyone other than Hendra. Not that it's a huge knock, especially when your other partners aren't great, but still he wasn't relevant in the world scene until he partnered Hendra. And it's not that he was very young or anything, he was 25 when that pair was formed.
     
  19. Yoji

    Yoji Regular Member

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    Obviously AhsanHendra is a better 'pair' than CaiFu. Its just that they dont play their youths together. At AhsanHendra age, CaiFu can barely keep up. Longevity is crucial since they more or less same number of titles. HS probably have more titles than CaiFu anyway.
     
  20. Yoji

    Yoji Regular Member

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    Well you cant even appreciate someone who has 3 medal with different partners yet you can say ZN is the best when in fact he just got Lucky in OG/WC MD, other than that what have he won? I can say 100% for sure Fu/Zhang isnt even better pair than GohTan. They were smashed in the groupstages and just got lucky.
     

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