How do you beat an opponent who just waits for you to attack?

You beat a waiting fencer by making their waiting useless: close the distance in small pieces, show them something that draws their reaction, then hit what that reaction leaves open. A fencer who waits is not idle. They want you to start from too far away, so your attack falls short or your arm arrives late and they can parry, counterattack or step back and hit. If you keep getting counterattacked or falling short, the cause is almost always one of two things: you launch from too far, or your attack is easy to read because it always has the same rhythm.

Fix distance and rhythm first. Close the gap with small, uneven steps, half steps and short pauses instead of one long march, so you are already inside lunge distance when you commit. Extend your arm before your front foot moves and keep it going forward. Then use their reaction against them. If they parry, feint into the line they guard and disengage around the parry. If they counterattack, show a half attack to draw it out, parry it and riposte. That is second intention, the classic answer to a fencer who waits.

In foil and sabre, waiting earns your opponent no right of way. If your attack is correct, with the arm straightening and threatening the target before the lunge, and they hit you at the same moment with a stop hit, the touch is yours. Their counter only wins if you are still preparing, with a bent arm or a pause, or if your attack has feints and they land before your final movement starts, so keep compound attacks short. If they wait with the arm straight and the point threatening you (point in line), you must deflect their blade first with a beat or a take of the blade; a light touch of the blades is not enough. In sabre, a waiter usually pulls distance and attacks into your preparation, so keep the preparation short and be ready to parry it.

In épée, waiting is a strong, legitimate plan because there is no right of way and a double scores for both. Probe the hand and forearm from long distance with short extensions, beat or bind the blade before you go deep, finish with opposition so their point is closed out, and if you are ahead, let them come to you. In direct elimination bouts a full minute without a touch brings a passivity penalty for both fencers, so the waiting game has a clock. To practise, ask a clubmate to play the waiter for a session, only parrying and counterattacking, while you work on stealing distance and drawing their reaction.