Here's a picture of my recent serving practice. 25 shuttles - two in the net, one hit the tape as it went over and so fell short, one bounced before the service line, the rest were in. 21 serves out of 25 were good, low serves. That's my minimum standard.
Interesting - is this seen as an acceptable standard, a good standard, or sub-standard by your coaches/yourself? Curious for a little more detail - are these serves aimed at the T, the middle of the line, for length, or for height over the net? I wonder as I served a couple hundred last night and mine land very similarly - they arc at a max of 2 inches over the net tape, but land further away from the service line than I perhaps wanted (it looks like yours must have landed ~15cm past the service line to end up in those final positions). The rough horizontal spread was about 2 ft, which means I need to aim slightly off of the T to eliminate wide shuttles. My failure (net/short) rate was roughly 3-4 per 2 dozen, but i felt that was padded by the fact shuttles were landing further from the short service line than I would have desired?
If I ever practice my serve (too few and far between unfortunately), I only care about the height and the direction (and for flick serves, the length). For the short serve, I never aim for the line - there is no advantage. If it lands 10 a few inches over the line, true it didn't dip as quickly as it could have done etc, but it is always in and safe. I much prefer always getting them in and safe, rather than worry about where the white line is. Looking at the picture, I cannot form any standard other than it is relatively consistent, and there are clearly a few spots being aimed at. Consistent is good. Different spots to aim at is good. Doesn't look like they were flirting with the front line which is something I like. Therefore, all looks good to me. But the real important thing is: did the serve go exactly where Cheung wanted it to go? And at the height and speed he wanted it to go? If yes, then its a good serve. If no, then its not a good serve i.e. if its not going where you want and how you want, then you are not really in control. And not in control means not good enough. p.s. I am enjoying reading your posts @Cheung !
It is my minimum standard. Nobody else's. I think failing two serves in a game is about the worst I would want to be. My logic is if the opponent knows I won't fail on the serve, the greater the pressure is on the receiving side to 'win' a point rather than get a freebie. This adds up to mental pressure. For my partner, it is a great bonus to stand behind a person who is a consistently good server. You know the opponent cannot hit down at you and you have a better chance of making your third shot. I can practice placing a serve anywhere. Usually, it's within a foot of the T though I am quite happy to place it further along outwards across the service line. The majority of these serves landed 6-12 inches past the service line and bounced a little further. Sometimes, I do mess around with the opponents by changing the angles they receive serve. An experiment searching for their weaker or predictable areas of return of serve.
Not a problem. Get in it is the first rule. If you want to get it closer to the service line either a) step back 6 inches when serving, or b) serve out wider (diagonal length is longer)
Agree with Matt, it's the height of the serve over the tape that matters most. As long as it is less than 2 inches and dips immediately after crossing the tape then it's good. Another pointer: don't just aim for the T all the time, best is to aim +/- a few inches of the racket shoulder/foot. Reason being this is one of the most difficult areas for the receiver because they have to take some time to decide whether to take it backhand or forehand. Then you'll get a low quality reply as a result of their indecision and lateness. Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk
Taking that even further, look at the way the receiver holds the racquet. Many times the grip shows they favour a backhand or forehand reply which will be their stronger shot. So keep that in mind when searching for their weaker areas to serve to. I can't say I am totally happy with my serves - after crossing the net, they don't always dip down fast enough.
This is a diagram of the court for one of the training routines for doubles. I am in the rectangular box. Coach stands in A, C, D or F. He hits the shuttle towards me and I have to hit it back to him. Cool. 25 stroke rally, and keep the quality good - not so easy. OK, he is making it easier for me as the name of this exercise is to practice footwork. In fact, it is a multifunctional drill. You can work on footwork, speed, combinations... We noticed this time if I do a step out and smash from the right side of the court to coach (who is standing in C), who then gives me a midcourt drive return, the shuttle is pretty difficult to control on my forehand and I bump the shuttle in the net. Why? OK, after I smash, I haven't lowered my centre of gravity and bent my knees on the landing. Tried it out and getting back the shuttle with quality is a lot easier. Second situation, I stand slightly right of centre line and forehand half drive to coach at C (I hit the shuttle just above my head height to the right), then coach drives it back to my left side of body, I can't control the shuttle properly on my backhand and it goes in the net. Yet other backhands are OK - it's a bit strange. I went backwards and came across my forehand technique which I think is the problem. When I initially lift my hand for the preparation, the racquet head stays in the same position for a fraction of a second. I know the racquet head has to move at the same time as your hand but I have a slight delay. That seems to put me off a fraction in making a good contact on the forehand, and then a secondary effect is if the next shot is to receive a drive to my backhand, then I become less consistent. Don't notice it in slower games but it turns up in training. Good stuff, I improve two things for the price of one...
If you're still looking for improvement on your serves, they need to be tighter to the service line. Some of them appear to be quite far away. This naturally means the forward speed is a bit too fast (assuming the height is still good), which also means they stay at the relatively high position, allowing a slower receiver to attack them at a good height. There should be 3 target areas on each half front court, not two.
Once they land, they bounce forward a little more. Quite obviously, I haven't shown the full range of options
Played a couple games last night. It's very interesting to pick up on serve failure rate actually. I probably put a serve into the net once per game. Previously that would involve me compensating in some way to avoid it again. But now I continue to serve as i was, as that is simply my level of consistency. I know it doesn't work this way, but I thought of it as "well that is one serve short, I shouldn't have any more this game!". Quite a good psychological boost at the very least!
Crazy HK style training times. Due to working life, training times are irregular. I have a badminton friend living close by and we can train each other. Usually, we prefer 8am in the mornings though we did meet up at 7am on one occasion to train together. Unfortunately, we had to cancel tomorrow's first session after a long while due to a sudden work appointment. That is really so We will be planning more morning sessions so let's see what happens. I had a very interesting taekwondo session today. Nobody else turned up except me. Yeesss. A private lesson for the price of group class. Alas, I died by a thousand swords during the warm up and conditioning. Still, two months of taekwondo is not very long. We worked on some movements and I noticed a similar movement problem that also happens in my badminton. Namely, when I try to move my body in a direction forward or backwards, my legs are stepping but not really pushing. So, the leg movement is correct but my body doesn't move as well as it should. I had to concentrate hard to really push properly with my front or back leg. It was a good exercise and something to bear in mind when back on badminton court. Afterwards, walking home, I picked up a bubble tea for rehydration. Asked to reduce the sugar content in the drink. Had some food at home even though I was not very hungry. After that, I mixed up some whey protein in milk and drank that. Now it is time for bed and muscle rebuilding and repair.
I don't know if you have the chance, but I wouldn't stop at just 20 birdies when serving. I go through a whole box (about 100+) without stopping. It kinda gives you a rhythm and really sets in the muscle memory more than just doing a few. Also, my coach isn't very concerned about where my birdie actually lands. When I practice serves he only looks at me, and my body movement. If I have my grip, my stance and my body all the right way, then he's happy even if it goes out. If I serve short, or hit the net its because something was wrong with my body stance not with my "aim." Aim is secondary.
This picture is for BC as perhaps it shows more clearly a game situation where you would only get a maximum of 20 serves. I only stopped to take the picture Now, as yourself and @raymond have pointed out, the pictures have deficiencies. But in fact, I practice more than a couple of hundred of serves each time I do this exercise. Then I walk to the opposite end and serve the shuttles again. I just haven't taken the picture. Also, what do we achieve from the practice? Definitely, rhythm is important. But getting 90% success rate in service has to be taken with caution. What if the early part of the service practice have the bad serves as I showed in the first picture ? Doesn't that reflect competition conditions where you just walk on court to start your very first match? It is all very well getting a 100% service rate after serving 400+ serves but I won't get this chance on competition day. I might get the chance to practice 3-5 low serves in that knock up just before the match for 'calibration' purposes and then it is straight into the game. When I do my extended run of serving practice, the short serves can be anywhere along the service line from centre to wide (but not to tramlines purely for margin of error). Then I like to put an open box (the ones that hold 50 tubes of shuttles), if available, near the back doubles line and flickserve the shuttle into the box. I would place the box out wide and also near the centreline. Other tricks I like to do is to alternate sides when serving and walking to opposite end and serving again after 50-100 serves to deliberately disrupt my service rhythm and work on quickly getting it back again.
Rather than distance and placement (to which Cheung appears to be proficient at already), I am going to go against the grain here and suggest using the metrics of trajectory and height above the net instead. A strong and recurring theme among Zhao Jianhua's badminton coaching tutorials involves the concept of executing shots which result in forcing your opponent(s) to lift in their reply, which is advantageous. Serves with an upward trajectory beyond the net, or those that are too high often result in an opponent killing the shot immediately. I don't have a video reference on hand to back this up, but I recall watching it recently from a men's singles match in this year which involved a mediocre serve and some explosive lunging and a kill thereafter. @Cheung : It's nice to hear that others are taking Whey for badminton haha. It must be normal for most of us to have sore muscles 1-3 days post badminton I hope?
Missed my regular session coaching but managed to fit a lesson in a few days later...luckily. Let's see - I played a few days ago but it wasn't really ideal. I finished work late and rushed to the courts. Quick warm up and stretch and then on court. It was a bit awful at the beginning for the first two games and I started getting a bit better rhythm later. I played the two really good girls that I mentioned earlier in the thread. Frankly speaking, some of my shot choices leave something to be desired and not thinking clearly enough. For instance, the opponents are split sides, I am at the net but taking a shot coming down. For some reason, I hit the shuttle cross court to the tramline. The shuttle has to go up before coming down and these girls are fast enough to approach the net to do a block, drive, fake shot. On the other hand, because their smashes are not so hard, the rallies are a bit longer and I tried to use that to get into the rhythm of the game, get my bounce right and not rush too much. All those years of 'taking the shuttle early' creates some bad habits - you get to think every shot needs to be taken early rather than selecting the ones that can be taken early and others which don't need to be taken early. It's taking a bit of time to readjust to doubles play. Singles is much easier to differentiate the shots in this respect. In my coaching session, we didn't really do much new stuff. We are trying to groove the actions covered before so that I do not slip back into my bad habits. I still have my weak areas on defence, especially right shoulder and timing the little explosive technique with the fingers when the shuttle is struck. For my net drives when receiving a drive, coach noticed my right foot takes a little step forward every time. He asked me to stop this as the shuttle is coming very fast at me and there is no need to move forward. What happens is moving forward towards a fast driven shuttle makes a slightly inaccurate hitting point. It results in me hitting the shuttle a bit flatter and 'floating' a bit. So we concentrated on getting the rhythm of the bounce and moving sideways across the net area. Off court exercises, I continue in the gym, martial arts and stretching. I did a bit of practice on my starting step. As I sink down for the preload, I think very carefully of which leg to push off and try to concentrate on the explosive acceleration of my initial leg movement to push off. I am having to use slightly different muscles to the gym exercises.
Do you have a certain preference for moving or standing still while hitting other strokes? For example I think with the backhand power shots and smashes for example, I receive advice to move forward/into the shot. However with clears, I find that any sideways movement tends to influence the shuttle too much whenever aiming for the lines. I am now wondering if getting comfortable with hitting strokes on the move / during a standstill is a "thing" or not.
This is too general a question. Some shots, even if you are away from the net, you don't have to move, some you do.
Say for example, under ideal scenearios where you have ample time to move and place yourself prior to hitting a shot, do you prefer moving or "stepping into the shot" as they call it, or do you halt your movement prior to hitting? Drive shots are something well beyond my ability at the moment but I have been experimenting around with taking them late / early / beside / infront / behind me so any insight on the matter helps. Thanks in advance!
Well, if you are talking about defensive drive shots in doubles, then no need to step. Perhaps you could post up a video of your technique and then we can comment on that.
