Analysis of phases and medalists to women’s singles matches in badminton at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine the technical and tactical styles of the world's best badminton players at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Materials and methods: The research material consisted of the post-event analysis of 58 matches from the Tokyo Olympics. Through AHP analysis (analytic hierarchy process) to 6 temporal variables with a high influence on match/game effectiveness were selected. Match/game statistical analysis, with the one-way measure of the variance (ANOVA), and independent-sample T-test, were conducted by using IBM SPSS for Windows version 22.0 (IBM. Corp. Armonk, NY) in order to compare the statistical differences. Results: This conducted study showed that frequency of strokes in badminton was 1-1.12 strokes/sec, which is one of the longest rally strokes. The mean and standard deviation of the women's singles players, particularly in the knockout stage, is greater than the mean and standard deviation of the group stage. Results show the differences between Group Phase (35.05±9.77, 47.07±13.12, s, P=0.020) and Eliminatory Phase (11.93±1.58, 13.93±2.30, s, P=0.030) respectively. Conclusions: The women's singles competition currently mainly revolves around the technical and tactical styles of "fast-oriented", "offensive-oriented" and “self-oriented”. This is in line with the current trend of development of the world's women's singles athletes' more "masculine" style of play.