Carolina Marin loves data

Carolina Marin uses data to gain an advantage

I read an article that gives an insight into what she loves

As long ago as 2006 Carolina Marin and her team were already analysing data on her opponents manually from video.

Using Excel’s dynamic tables to figure out opponents’ game patterns so that she had an advantage before a single shuttlecock was struck

“We have been working with big data and specific analysis for a really long time and it makes things much easier for me,”  Marin told Olympics.com,

“because I can know my rival much better, I can be more calm when I step on the court.”

What information would you want that to gain an advantage over your opponent?

Do you agree …

• • Is all data useful – knowing that your opponent makes more errors than outright winners, how useful is that?  What are the really useful statistics to collect, now that I’d love to know?
  • Knowing something can be a huge psychological benefit – the something may only be knowing what stroke an opponent favours (70% of the time) as a return to a low serve from the left court when it’s played with a backhand stroke.
  • The cost of the collection could be prohibited– how much data do you need to collect and check for it to remain useful?  How much does a data analysis get paid?
  • The information is there to use – opponents do have favoured strokes in certain situations, they set up winning positions by doing ‘this or that’, plus they do often ‘revert to type’ under pressure situations.  The aim of effective analysis is to know what these strokes are, how opponents go about creating winning positions, how they behave when placed under pressure, and what are the different triggers for players ‘ feeling’ pressure.
  • Analyse your own game– it’s not just opponents that we need to collect data on.  How a player performs (maybe without knowing) is also very useful information.

How would you go about collecting data from games you’ve played or what statistics would you look for

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As always, I’m very grateful if you have read this far 🙂

What data do you think would be useful to gather?

Why not send me an email  contact@badmintonandy.com

 

This is part of a series of conversation starters. 

Although not in detail, the posts are written to get you thinking and talking with others.