I have been a badminton fan since I was a kid and throughout the years I've witnessed some brilliant players from Indonesia. Not that I want to claim as a badminton expert but I sort of believe that I can "judge" whether a player is going to be big or not. Typically, I need to see the way they play and usually players with special characteristics will succeed and have successful careers. For example, Ricky/Rexy with their unmatched attacking ability, Susi Susanti with her inch accurate defense and attacking lob combined with amazing court coverage, Taufik Hidayat with his unreal backhand smash etc.
Since 2014, I followed an XD pair Praveen Jordan/Debby Susanto. Both players have different characteristic and their combination is lethal. When I first watched his game in 2014 Asian Games, Praveen showed his amazing smashing abilities to kill the opponents. It is very dangerous for the opponent to give a high lob to the other side of the court as Praveen can kill it in 1 - 2 smash(es). However, Praveen tends to commit a lot of unforced errors to give the opponent easy points. While Praveen has the advantage in attacking ability, Debby is a typical smart player. She does not have unique or magic strokes but the way she plays reveal that she knows how to play and win the game. Another strength of Debby is her consistency.
So, since 2 years ago I believe this pair has potential to be top players in the world. Although they didn't show striking progress but slowly but surely they played reasonably well by getting the medals in Asian Games 2014 and SEA Games 2015. They also got the chance to play against top XD players and manage to beat most of them. In the beginning of 2016 the pair finally proved to the world that they are an XD pair to watch for by winning the prestigious All England Premier Super Series. Definitely, it's not just because of luck, they worked on their to the finals by beating a lot of top ranked players even the world number 1, Zhang Nan/Zhao Yunlei.
However, after All England, they struggled in the last two tournaments namely Malaysia and Singapore Open. They unexpectedly got beated in the early round of the tournament.
If I look into their games in the last tournaments, it seems they haven't reached their All England form again. Praveen commits too many unforced errors again and it seems the opponents already know the way they play. In general, the way Praveen/Debby play the best would be an attacking game. So basically, Debby will try to control the game by making the shuttlecock go down and force the opponent to lift so that Praveen can launch his killer smash. Another thing that Debby usually does is to place the shuttle to an area that confuses the opponent which destroys their formation, then Praveen will finish it. So if Debby can control the net area, it almost certain that it would be a bad day for the opponent. But watching their last games in which they lost, we can see that Debby usually was forced to play at the back this is obviously not the ideal formation as the pair cannot launch a dangerous attack and Praveen sucks at the net :D
Obviously, going to the Olympic they need to think about this. The standard play by setting Praveen on smashing will not always work, everybody knows about this. They need to work on various playing styles that confuse the opponent. I guess the good thing about this pair right now is their mentality, they know what it takes to be a winner. It is just a matter for them to have a better playing strategy and for Praveen to fix his inconsistency. If they manage to work on those, they are serious contenders in Rio 2016.
