Tobias Wadenka just posted a new video minutes ago showing this new crazy spin serve. Spinning the shuttle with the fingers just prior to hitting! Gonna try it tmrw and report back! Sent from my SM-S918W using Tapatalk
Okay, this is nothing less than mindblowing. I've seen this this "finger spinning" technique used when feeding to practise net shots to make the shuttle tumble, but this is a stroke of genius. DEFINITELY will give this a try. Today in the living room. Edit: Found it:
I can see them changing the rules to outlaw this. "server can't use fingers to put spin on shuttle" / "Can't hold it in a particular way" Gives the servers too much advantage. It's a shame I can't practice it due to operation
Dang! I tried it. I can barely give it a stable spin with my dominant/right/racket hand. With my left, I can't spin it without it flying all over the place. Forget about trying to serve it... Works in theory, but I'm gonna have to spend more time and effort to try this. I think the important thing is to spin it only just a little bit so that it is still consistently servable. Sent from my SM-S918W using Tapatalk
Same issues here. Tried it for around 20 minutes and didn’t succeed at all. Crucial thing is to release the shuttle in a controlled way and in a steady position while still giving it enough spin to cause the effect. See 2:32 in the Wadenka video: I wonder how long it will take until more pros will have it dialed in safely enough to show it at tournament level. I don’t expect it to become an epidemic though.
Gawhhd damn its hard to do. I think it might be easier to attempt this with a forehand serve instead?
I'm actually wondering if it's worth learning it. I have a good feeling it will be a faulted serve anytime soon. You can be sure the BWF is on it and I doubt they are interested in having matches with a majority of 1 stroke rallies.
Let's look at this realistically. There are two options: 1) It's possible to implement this serve safely and consistently and with the huge effect we've seen Consequence: It will be banned by the BWF quickly as we've seen it already with the Sidek serve. => no need to invest much time into the whole thing. 2) It's not realistically possible to achieve the needed consistency and to actually use this serve in tournament situations or the effect is far less crucial than what we've seen so far. Consequence: Not useable or reasonable in match situations. => it won't make sense to invest much time and effort into it either. Have I missed other possible options?
Hey Simon, I usually don’t write on this forum but I am intrigued by this particular topic and felt that your assessment of the situation is not quite correct 1) Assuming that it is possible, I think you are giving a lot of undue credit to Bwf. A governing body is quite slow at reacting to these things. Take for example the sidek serve that was introduced at the end of the 70’s. Complaints about it emerged quite early by some countries, however when put to a vote certain countries did not vote against it hence no special rule was made. The end of the story was that it took a couple of years to stop this particular serve. I highly doubt that Bwf would be capable of introducing a rule stopping this serve in a couple of months. Especially given the fact that I don’t know how to phrase such a rule. Not touching the cork is not really an option for singles players that do a forehand serve. 2) Obviously it is possible to implement this serve somewhat safely if it is being used in an international tournament. I don’t mean to trashtalk Marcus Rindshøj, but if a player who up to this date has not perfomed on the world’s highest stage is able to do this, I think it is fair to assume that other pro players will be able to pick up on this quite fast. Take for example Marvin Seidel who practiced a couple of 100 hours to learn the spin serve made famous by Sukamuljo. Who is to say that other pros won’t to the same if they feel like this is giving them an edge. Even if it takes Bwf only a couple of months, which is quite an optimistic estimate, players would have a high incentive of learning this. Think about it. Even if it is only allowed for 1 World Championship, it would be worth it for players. Also considering the price money for some tournaments should be motivation enough to learn it.
The question was if it would be worth to invest effort into this as a non-pro player like myself. We don’t have the possibilities to spend 100 hours for a speciality like this and that’s why I think that there are a lot of things that will have more impact - and less risk. The Danish pair lost in straight games in the second round of this tournament btw. So it doesn’t seem to be that killer weapon (yet).
Apologies to hijack your reply here. It's not really important to this topic but relevant about the spinning serve. A lot of people call the Sidek serve. I have first seen this serve performed by the legendary player Tang Xinfu, Lin Dan's coach, at the 1975 Hong Kong Invitational tournament, so the spinning serve was already being used even before 1975. China at that time was not a member of the IBF, so they did not participate in international tournaments. There are a few threads about this spinning serve in this forum. Misbun Sidek, I don't think he was the one that came up with this serve. It may be the Sidek brothers that made it popular/famous to the badminton world.
I tried it a bit last night but unfortunately there were games going on so I couldn’t get a good amount of time to practice. First impressions are you need to practice it over a few days otherwise your fingers are going to get quite sore.
Pretty sure the BWF can phrase it though. For instance, by mentioning that touching the cork is not allowed for backhand serves or very simply that spinning the shuttle while serving isn't allowed.
wow, you were there to watch the game live and close enough to catch the service technique in 1975?!!
How would you deal with it as the receiver? What do you do? Just take it as early and high as possible and hope for the best, or let it drop as far as you can and try to play a somewhat controlled lift?
Ok manage to get the correct action consistent 9 times out of 10 for the dominant right hand only... My clumsy left hand can only do it correctly 2 out of 10 times... Will need a few more hours of practice just to get the spin only. Haven't even gotten to serving with it... My small hands don't help. Those with bigger hands will probably find it easier. Sent from my SM-S918W using Tapatalk
I spent another 20 minutes today without any noticeable improvement. Only tried it with my non dominant hand though. I think that there were maybe a handful of attempts when I thought that it might have been possible to actually hit a serve, but no idea if that was actually true. It’s a very, very difficult technique.
I don't think it's worth emulating this spin serve. Anyway it's about time the entire badminton service is overhauled. Better from the rearcourt playing a smash, clear or drop. More variation and tactics from the off.