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Center position-After service, you would usually take up position in the center, where you think the most suitable to take all return shots. Move or shuffle your body a little while waiting for your opponent to return the shot. We called this “dancing.” While dancing, you are actually preparing to push your body easier to hit any shot that comes to you.  If you are good in taking a baseline shot and weak in taking drop shot, then you can shuffle your body slightly towards the front.

  – If you are slightly away from the net and have to take 2 steps to reach the shuttle, gallop and bend down your knee a little, give it a push with your left leg then covered the distance with your right. If you are fast then you have time to either do straight netting, cross netting or sent the shuttle away to any empty space into your opponent side. To take up position for the next shot, moved back with your right leg with a push.

  – Lower down your body a little, gallop and move your body towards the forehand side of the net, remember to give it a push with your left leg tiptoed, then covered the distance with your right. Always try to reach the shuttle, hitting the shot with your racket close to the top of the net. This way it’s easier to control and provides more choices on your next shot. Shuffle your body and dance away for the second shot with a push.

Returning a backhand smash – Bend down your knee a little to get the power, dance and shuffle your body, turn your body towards the backhand side where the smash landed, with your back facing the net. You can do this by forcing your right leg across to take a big step. You can either lift the shuttle high for a clearance or flick the shuttle to the short line of your opponent. Always shuffle your body and be ready for the next shot.

Returning a forehand smash – Bend down your knee a little to get the power, dance and shuffle your body, move your body towards the forehand side where the smash landed. You can do this by getting your left leg close to your right then forcing your right leg to take a big step. Again, you can either lift the shuttle high for a clearance or flick the shuttle to the short line of your opponent. Always shuffle your body and be ready for the next shot.

In badminton nothing comes easy! In order to do well in receiving drop shot and smashes from your opponent, you need to practice the footwork at your own pace. The more your practice, the better you are. You can practice the below footwork according to your current physical condition and gradually increase its repetition as you improved.

Article was written by Cheong Weng Kwai of prospeed.com.my

I’ve often talked about the short serve in badminton being the most neglected part of the game. It’s an area professional badminton players take very seriously and spend hours working on every week.

So why is it that club and league standard players spend no time at all on this critical part of the game? Why do players in clubs fail to understand the tactical importance of the short serve in badminton?

It baffled me for a while and then I truly understood the answer! You see, the short serve in badminton isn’t exciting like a smash, it’s not a full-on action shot where glory is showered on the player who serves brilliantly in a game.

Or have we all got it so wrong and missed the point?

How often have you walked off court, losing a match and then complained that your partner’s serve was rubbish “they just couldn’t get the shuttle over the net or in the court.” Or worse, every time they serve, your opponent buried it! You’ll then admit that you can’t win, if you can’t serve.

And you’d be absolutely right.

We’ve all said this quote at some time or other, whether we’re blaming our partner or ourselves. So now we’ve agreed how critically important it is to serve well, shouldn’t we at least acknowledge a player who consistently served tight in a game?

In my opinion, this player should be seen in the same light as the player with the big smash. After all, they are consistently delivering a tight serve in the most tense period of the game, when literally the match could depend on their skill to keep the shuttle low and in the court. At 20-20, you have to agree that the serve is the biggest pressure shot in the game, especially when serving to a player who is ready to pounce on anything remotely loose.

In this scenario, the serve has got to be the most exciting, the most nerve-wracking shot to deliver because it can be a game winner, a match winner, or even a tournament winner! In my book, that beats the big smash and demonstrates a high degree of skill.

So why do we still choose to dismiss its importance?

I think the key here is finding ways to practice the serve that give it an edge, a higher level of importance and severe consequences if you fail to get it right.

Here’s a couple of technical practice ideas and one tactical practice idea for you…

1)      Target serving – get your team take part and split them into 2 teams playing against each other. Each player has to serve to a designated target (e.g. a tube or shuttles or empty box) placed near the T. Each player has 6 shuttles and count how many they get in the box. The loosing team buys the drinks or some other forfeit you decide on.

2)      In your teams again – one is the attacking team, and the other the serving team. Choose one player from each team to go on court. You have 6 shuttles. Server serves from right court and must serve low serves. They can serve to anywhere along the service line but they are not allowed to flick serve. The attacking player can toe the service line. The attacking player wins a point if they can pounce on the serve and put it on the floor or the serve is out. The server wins a point when the player fails to return the serve over the net, misses it completely and it lands in and if they fail to bury the shuttle for a winner. Returns to the net or a push score points to the server. Again, have a forfeit for the losing team. Reverse the roles so each team has a go at serving and receiving.

3)      To improve your tactical awareness, work together to watch for weaknesses in a player. Work in pairs. Your teammate is the guinea pig here. They need to create 6 different scenarios which could lead to potential weakness e.g. receive on non-racket leg, racket too low (don’t make it too obvious), racket slightly wide to the right, forehand grip to name a few. Ask the server serve tactically this time. Once the serve has been struck, ask what they noticed and what they changed. If your teammate didn’t know the answer, try again. If they still don’t know, show them.

You’ve now been given three practices, two to help you improve your serve from a technical viewpoint and the final exercise from a tactical view.

If you work on these exercises on a frequent basis, then you will soon notice a huge difference in the results you are getting. Your serves will be significantly better which will lead to an improvement in confidence. Because you are now serving tactically, you’ll also recognise that you have changed and are serving to win a point and not to begin a rally.

Article was written by Paul Stewart, Badminton Coach, UK.

Summary
In the first part of this series of badminton skills articles, you discovered the different style of player. In part 2 I shared my thoughts on identifying your opponents strengths and weaknesses via a skills audit, albeit most of the time, an on-court, in the game, test your opponent type of audit.

In this third and final part of the series, it’s time to bring the pieces together and help you understand yourself as a player, your partner, how to be a winning team and how to design badminton tactics to beat your opponent(s).

Let’s Begin With Style…

Yes, we’ve covered this in part 1 but not like this.

In singles, whatever happens on the badminton court, it’s down to you, your skills, your strengths and weaknesses and whether on that day, you have all the pieces to defeat your opponent.

The first element of changing the game will depend on whether your style is getting the result against your opponent. Either they play the same style as you and therefore are better or worse at it than you.

Secondly, within the realms of style are skills. Is your opponent better equipped skill-wise than you are?
Having answered these questions, if you are in a commanding position, then there’s no need to change. However, if you are losing, then your ability to change your style and introduce new elements into the game and win will depend on two things…

1) Your ability
2) Your opponent’s ability to adapt to these changes.

It gets far more complex when you’re playing doubles. In this discipline, consideration must be made to both yours and your partner’s styles. Are they compatible or is this a recipe for disaster? E.g. if you’re an aggressive attacker and your partner is a defender thinker, then you’ve got such a mismatch it’s going to be difficult to gel as a pair.

There would need to be a good deal of compromise in order to find a tactical place to win points from.
So ideally, you need to choose your partner based on similar or complimentary styles.

Take a good look around your club members for a level and mixed doubles partner that would potentially fit this ideal. Do you know who they are? Have you partnered them in the past and played well together?

And What About Skills?

Just as important. Again, look for similar and/or complimentary skills. Why?

Whenever you partner a player, it’s important that you play the best combined game you can. To accomplish this, you need to maximise your strengths and minimise your weaknesses, however, you should always look to play to your strengths first and impose this game on your opposition.

In top class badminton I raised the point that the Defender Thinker style is obsolete. I’ll take this point further and suggest that the Aggressive Defender style is also obsolete because in the modern day game, matches are won based on the quality and consistency of the attack. Yes, player’s defences are becoming stronger, however, partnerships cannot afford to sit back and defend anymore.

A classic complimentary partnership at the moment is current All England Champions Jonas Rasmussen and Lars Paaske. Rasmussen is the big hitter in this pair and prefers to play at the rear court. Both are excellent defenders. However, the partnership works because Paaske is by far the better server, is almost unstoppable from half court forward and sets up so many opportunities for Rasmussen. He also has a masterful tactical brain.

Rasmussen is the more nervous of the two players and tends to suffer serving jitters during big points. He’s also prone to the most unusual, kamikaze attacks at times which are extremely high risk and subject to a high percentage of errors. But, it keeps their opponents wondering what’s going to happen next.

In this case, one is a more aggressive attacker but is complimented by an Attacking Thinker.

What About Lower League Badminton?

In league badminton where most of us play, all styles are still prevalent and effective, depending on standard of the players.

There are styles which do not work well together or are not particularly complimentary, however this doesn’t mean they won’t win a few games. Do you know which ones fit well together and which ones are a complete mis-match? Let’s take a closer look…

Aggressive Attacker + Aggressive Attacker = match (very hard to beat)
Aggressive Attacker + Attacking Thinker = match (superb combination)
Aggressive Attacker + Aggressive Defender = mismatch (but has possibilities.)
Aggressive Attacker + Defender Thinker = mismatch. (too many differences)
Attacking Thinker + Aggressive Defender =- match (but need to define their tactics)
Attacking Thinker + Defender Thinker = match (a good understanding is needed here)
Aggressive Defender + Defender Thinker = mismatch (but can win against a poor/disjointed defence)

Each of these combinations has potential to win but this will depend on the style and skills of their opponents.
I see a lot of aggressive defenders and defender thinkers in club level, more than I do aggressive attackers. I don’t know why this is, but it would seem there are many players who like to counter hit rather than attack with intent.

Adapting Your Badminton Style

Having discussed the relative differences in style in earlier articles, one of the key elements in a good badminton player is the ability to adapt. In my opinion, the attacking thinker player is the most adaptable and that’s why they can fit other styles, albeit with a degree of compromise.

You see, sometimes you’re selected for a team and told who you’re playing with. Whilst you’d like to play your game, more often than not you also have to be aware of your partner’s style and skills and adapt to their game in order to win.

You almost have to compromise your game to fit into a partnership. And that’s why some partnerships don’t work. The players are incapable of adapting and gelling together to make a good pair. At times like these, the only thing to do is look elsewhere.

How Do You Design Badminton Tactics?

The first thing you need to do is work out your strengths and weaknesses as a pair. A high degree of honesty and realism is required here because once you’re on court, all of your skills are on display. Despite having a “bad day” you’d be expected to fulfil your role on court without too many surprises for your partner.

Second, you need to agree what is your strongest formation when you’re attacking. This begins to dictate the shots you will play to retain or gain this winning formation.

No surprises to guess that you ask the same questions of your opponents. What is their favoured formation? What are their strengths and weaknesses?

Having assessed this information, you design tactics based on moving them away from their favoured formation, focussing on exploiting their weaker areas. By understanding what these weak areas are, you therefore know where to place the shuttle to obtain the response you are looking for.

This means you play shots with INTENT, to cause a desired response. That’s what playing tactically means. So rather than your normal reactive response to a situation that your opponents have caused, you are now being far more direct in what you are trying to achieve, which is to obtain a weak response or error. From this the point is either lost by your opponent or you win from the intended set up.

Let’s look at an example…

You’re playing a mens doubles and you’ve been partnered with a Defensive Thinker style. You’re an Attacking Thinker style. You’re both strong defensively and your best combination is you at the rear court and your partner at the net.

You’re facing an Aggressive Attacker and Defensive Thinker. Their weakest formation is to move the Defensive Thinker away from the net. You certainly don’t want to lift the shuttle to the Aggressive Attacker because this will play to their partnership strengths.

So with this partnership, you decide to lure the Aggressive Attacker forward by taking the pace off the shuttle which they don’t like. Then you get the shuttle behind them to the rear court so that their weakest combination is on show. Your tactics are working. Now you need to pin the Defender Thinker into the corners, keeping his partner out of the game (this will test their mental strength because they can’t hit the shuttle hard).

From this position, whilst you may be defending, you are ready to pick up any loose shots and also quickly change your defence into attack. You may have worked out that if you drive the shuttle back from a smash, your partner immediately moves his base towards the net to counter a block here, therefore pressurising your opponent to lift and provide you with your favoured formation to attack.

As you can imagine, there are too many scenarios to play out here, but you get the idea don’t you? Your analysis of the opponents playing styles, and strengths and weaknesses, in addition to the analysis of your own game, allows you to design the responses you make in order to gain the advantage and take control of the game by adopting your favoured formation.

What To Do Next

Before you go on court with your partner, why not change your approach to the game. Instead of walking on, knocking up and getting on with it, have a serious chat. Work out how to play your best game together and a brief analysis of your opponents.

Design your badminton tactics around the information you share and then play the game from the first point with intent to win points by the design of your shots.

I expect you’ll make a few mistakes getting used to this kind of game. However, I also believe that if you get it right, you will take the game off your opponents and they’ll leave the court wondering what happened.

This concludes my 3 part article designed to improve your tactical awareness on a badminton court. I really hope you’ve found it useful and you continue to develop in this area and surprise your opponents in the future. It’s been fun writing it, and I hope you’ll send in your comments when you’ve tested it to let me know how it’s working for you.

Article was written by Paul Stewart, Badminton Coach, UK.

Blocking smashes is among the most important defensive skills in badminton. If you can’t return your opponent’s smashes, then your chances of winning the game is slim.

In the NBA, there is a famous saying: Good defense equals good offense. This also applies to badminton. Everybody knows that the smash is an important offensive move in badminton. Smashes, especially jump smashes, are extremely fast and powerful and it is the main attraction for audiences watching a competition. Players and coaches spent years trying to perfect smashes and also smash blocking techniques. In the 80s, there was a famous match where Han Jian from China stopped around a dozen continuous attacks from Liem Swie King of Indonesia, one of the best offensive players in the world at the time, and went on the win the match. There are many other examples of great defense in high level competitions, and all of us recreational players wish that we had that level of defensive skill, so that winning a game becomes easier.

The goal of smash blocking is to prevent the opponents from scoring points from their smashes, and also try to turn the tide of battle. There are many specific smash blocking techniques, but all of them fit into three general categories.

Category 1: Power smash blocking. The defender swings the racket when blocking the smash, hitting the bird to the back of the opponent’s side of the court. The faster the smash is, the faster the return will be. This kind of blocking can also be split into upper body blocking and lower body blocking. If the birdie flies above the waist level, then try to hold the racket with the head pointing up and drive the bird back to the opponent and force the opponent to defend. If the birdie flies below waist level, then there’s no choice but to use an underhand swing to clear the bird to backcourt. In the first case where the bird is above waist level, sometimes it’s more advantageous to use the backhand grip even if the bird is in the forehand part of the coverage. The backhand grip allows you to have a quicker swing and also you wouldn’t have to change grips from backhand to forehand and vice versa. In the second case when you have to lift the bird, be ready for more smashes or other attacking shots, since your opponent is still in the position to attack.

Category 2: Deflective smash blocking. The defender doesn’t swing the racket and uses only the original force of the smash and the angle of the racket face to deflect the shuttlecock back into the opponent’s court. This technique is most effective when the bird is deflected to an empty part of the opponent’s court. If used well, this type of blocking is more effective than category 1, but it depends on the trajectory and target of the bird. This technique may not be very effective if the opponent follows the returns and gets closer and closer to the net. Because no swinging is involved, this blocking technique can cover a larger area than other techniques since the arm can be fully outstretched. It is commonly used in singles competition.

Category 3: Drop return smash blocking. The goal of this technique is not to hit or deflect the bird, but rather using a flick of the wrist, to turn an oncoming smash into a drop shot that just passes the net and lands in the front corners. This makes sure that the opponent won’t be able to continue the attack. This, of course, is the hardest block to execute but probably also the most effective. Note that in order to slow the momentum of an oncoming smash, the racket will sometimes sort of “carry” the bird. Carrying is a violation, so make sure the bird and racket don’t make contact for too long.

No matter which technique you use, all smash blocking require having quick reactions, racket control, muscular control and a clear head. Also try to lower your centre of gravity as smashes almost always fly towards the ground and stand in the spot that will give you the best position to defend.

Article was written by Tony Jiang