Personally, I'm proud to see that Huang Sui's smash is harder than Andy Roddick's serve! I'm also glad they're doing this, it should be an incredible boost for TV audiences.
Don't forget that no matter how hard the smash is, the shuttle normally only travels at about 30-50 km/h when it reaches the opponent. Not so for tennis.
lol - it needs to travel that fast to make the players run around - otherwise it'd be a walkabout on a court that big and a bounce, they should change the rules in tennis and not allow them a bounce apart from on the serve.. it'd make things really interesting oops.. i'm getting all tennis ranty again. no offence intended.. surely those baseline rallys don't actually travel that fast? especially once they've bounced.. plus, altho the average is lower for badminton, i bet the extremes are a lot bigger, and it's acually more of the extreme ends of the speed that have to be dealt with.. okay - i promise to rant no more. sorry if i offended any tennis players.. Neil
While i too feel that 332kmph is way too much speed ,when it reaches the opponent[i reckon it's the speed the instant the racket hits the shuttle],30-50 kmph is way too slow 125-200 on an average is more like it.
Swiss Open Hi Folks, the measurement of the speed was already done some years agp (It was 2001) at the Swiss open at en extra court (not during the game). The fastest was Jim Laugesen with 364km/h so Fu is not breaking the record. at all. The measurement was: Speedmeasurement of the Shuttle during the first 5 Milliseconds after a Smash. I attached the list I downloaded at that time Bye Toastie Here's the list as text. The important is the last number it's in km/h. Schlussrangliste / Final Ranking Geschwindigkeitsmessung Smashes während ersten 5 Milisekunden. Speedmeasurement of the Shuttle during the first 5 Milliseconds after a Smash. Damen / Ladies Rang Name Dist(mm) m/s km/h 1. H. Kirkegaard 126.0 93.7 337.2 2. P. Hong Yan 117.5 87.4 314.5 3. S. Yamada 114.0 84.8 305.1 4. P. Hong Yan 101.5 75.5 271.7 Herren / Men Rang Name Dist(mm) m/s km/h 1. J. Laugesen 136.0 101.1 364.0 2. Y. Nakanishi 130.0 96.7 348.0 3. Lee Tsunfn Seng 124.0 92.2 331.9 4. Tam Kai Chuen 120.0 89.2 321.2 5. Kwan Yoke Meng 119.5 88.8 319.9 6. Y. Nakanishi 119.0 88.5 318.5 7. T. Aokj (Japan) 119.0 88.5 318.5 8. S. Sato 118.5 88.1 317.2 9. Jens Eriksen 118.0 87.7 315.8 10. Yoo Yong Sung (Korea) 117.5 87.4 314.5 11. Y. Nakanishi (Japan) 117.0 87.0 313.2 12. Richard Yaughan 115.5 85.9 309.1 13. SAMAN Ismail 114.0 84.8 305.1 14. Ohtsuka Shinya 113.0 84.0 302.5 15. Misbun Sidek 113.0 84.0 302.5 16. Möller Madsen 106.5 79.2 285.1 17. Ng Kean Kok 106.0 78.8 283.7 18. Hong Cheng Hun 105.5 78.4 282.4 19. Ng Wie 104.0 77.3 278.4 20. Hashim Hafiz Malaysia 96.0 71.4 257.0
The results are not comparable at all. The Sudirman Cup measurements are made by some "microwave" technique (according to worldbadminton.net), and performed during actual matches. I think the Swiss Open measurements were made with a high-speed camera, on a specially set-up court. In other words, all the players were there with the only purpose of smashing as hard as they could.
Well, I am afraid that you are quite wrong. This has been measured. The negative acceleration (decceleration?) of a badminton shuttle is drastic. Read more in this thread.
Putting in my $0.02, IMHO, the more important measurement is how much time does a player have time to react to defend/react to a smash. From the thread explaining a shuttle decceleration rate, it appears that at the top level a player has little more than 0.2 of a second to react. That means 0.2 second to judge that it is indeed a smash, its trajectory and physically react to intercept it. It would be interesting, I think, to compare it to the reaction time given to a tennis player, cricket batsman, baseball hitter, etc.
which is exactly why any lady who plays mixed is quite justified in beating her partner to death when he lifts it needlessly..
In this case, you must also compare the variety of possible trajectories in these different sports. But as Mag said, the shot is read by receiver before it is actually produced. This is why players with an atypical style can be so difficult to play against... (more difficult to read the shot they are going to produce)
I guess I don't understand? At top level badminton, surely it isn't always possible to read your opponent's shot before s/he hits it? For instance, I've seen quite often when a player jumps as if he's going to do a smash until the very last moment when he either hits a dropshot or a punch clear. And even if s/he knows a smash is coming to a reasonable degree of certainty, s/he won't know where it's coming to until it's hit? IMHO, this is no different than cricket, tennis, baseball, etc. In fact, I think, badminton players are at a slight disadvantage because they don't know *for absolutely sure* that a smash is coming until it's hit. A tennis player knows a serve is coming. A cricket batsman or a baseball hitter knows a bowl or a pitch is coming. The big questions are where and whether they should hit it. Well, if they play at the top level, they also have to decide where they should hit it to.
Indeed. I was going to mention an additional factor of complexity that exists in tennis and cricket amongst others, but not in badminton, in that players and batsmen have to deal with ball bounces. But, since we were talking about pure smash speed, I assumed that the closer comparison would be a flat serve in tennis or a fast bowl in cricket where the ball bounce plays less of a factor. But, aren't most top players have pretty much atypical style anyway? It's true that a player can anticipate a shot based on her/his experience, scouting reports, etc.; but, I think it'd be quite unwise for her/him to preemptorily react strictly based on her/his anticipation. Again, just my $0.02.
The results are comparable as long as it is just "the speed of the shuttle". The way of measuring is different, as it's once in-game and once off-game (you remember correctly). And maybe, the new record was measured with like 10 ms instead of 5ms, as in the Swiss Open. But if we start a new record for every possible way to hit (and measure) a shuttle,... MFG Toastie
High-level badminton (and other sports) is always a competition between anticipation (reveiver) and deception (hitter). It is completely impossible to play without any anticipation, the game is much too fast. Players study their opponents style, tactics and habits before each match...
