Choosing between non-slice and slice drops

Yes.

The point of drop shots is to move your opponents forward or force a weak lift or weak net shot. If they are expecting drop shots, they will creep closer to the net and anticipate the drops.

With a straight slice, it takes the pace off of the shuttle and helps with deception. Without knowing if you are playing mens doubles, mixed doubles etc it's harder to give perfect advice.

TLDR - Don't be predictable. My favourite shot is a crosscourt from my backhand side and good opponents have started to notice it. I'm having to vary it by doing straight drops from that position or forcing myself to go round the head and not be lazy with the footwork.

If you watch some pro games, you will get an idea of when they do slicing if any. I would discourage you from doing crosscourt reverse slice and crosscourt slice because slice slows down the shuttle, and gives your opponents time to get there and do a tight net shot or a net kill.

 

Slicing can be used deceptively, but it can also just be a way to control your shots. It's perfectly fine to slice most of your drops, even if you don't intend to deceive your opponent.

Your opponent betting on your shots should be bad for the opponent. If they adapt to read your shots, you can adapt by playing different shots (attacking clears work great against players who like to move in to attack dropshots), and even if they bet right, they shouldn't be able to do much with your drop, because if you are not under pressure in the backcourt, you can play good quality shots that pass the net near the tape in a downward trajectory. Only if you are already in trouble in the backcourt, like if you hit it behind you, or low, can the opponent take the risk of betting on your shots.

 

I think slicing are meant to alter the racket force sideway so you get less push to the shuttle. The benefit are you do regular clear/smash full swing where it look so obvoius full swing but at last moment we alter the force making weak hit resulting drop shot that hard to anticipate.

Others, depend on the string bed angle on contact with shuttle, we can directing the shuttle to go the opposite of swing direction. & as it happen just very short its hard to aticipate. Yes it will be slower than if you swing it straight to the direction you want, but its to obvious movement.

so, i do agree with it. Its not about slice or not. Its more about how you combine it making your tactical move playing your opponent mind. Be unpredictable.

 

10000% yes. It's a tactical error to "always" do something as future reference.

I always try to emulate what pro's do, as they are doing what works the best and scales at the highest level, so I always try to trickle down from there.

So thought experiment: is there a famous deceptive rear court player? In my mind there isn't. All of them are famous for their smash in one way or another: consistency, angle, speed, raw power, placement, etc.

Only once you have opponents deeply planted and far back into a defensive position do drops become effective. But at that point a regular drop to the T usually will do the trick, so playing a technically more difficult shot (slicing it) that results in the same effect isn't tactically wise.

Court coverage in doubles is so good that shuttles should be reaching the ground as fast as possible, which you see with the difference in doubles v singles nets and drops. I probably only slice 5% of the time personally

 

if you're using slice drops to force rotations to get back to the front, I think normal cross drops or even attack clears would work better. Look at Kevin sukamulijo lol