32 VICTOR DENMARK OPEN 2021 | Women’s Doubles
“China’s different approach on how to beat the world’s best is very exciting” By Ronni Burkal Elkjær
Japan and Korea have dominated women’s doubles the last years, but Denmark’s assistant national coach Jesper Hovgaard sees signs of countries going in another direction.
- Women’s doubles are a game of patience because it’s hard to finish the points. I see it as a physical demanding category. You need to hit the shuttle many times, it takes a lot of endurance and keeping the mistakes away from the game. - Korea and Japan are sitting on the throne in women’s doubles, and they have done so for many years. It’s no coincidence.
- They are extremely skilled players and hard to score points against. Often the pairs hit as hard as they can, but with a low risk. They don’t want to force anything. Their mindset is to get the ball across the net as many times as possible and drain their opponents’ powers. - For me the exciting thing is a lot of pairs has become more aggressive than before. We are focusing more on how to win
points in counterattack. I think it will be necessary to beat the world’s best doubles. Otherwise, it will be too difficult to win if you have to play long rallies to gain every point against them. - That is also why a match between Korea and Japan differs from a match between Denmark and Japan. We want to do more in the defense, than when those two nations meet each other. I think, we also
