Someone tried to call my serve a foul

[SnowWhite]

Good points, thank you.

Someone in the past I played a match against once would open their mouth like an O when they were serving. Like they were yawning. It was very off-putting (but not illegal). Was really distracting.

My personal view about people who take their time with the serve is it's bad manners. When they stand still for 20-30 seconds a serve. But like you said it's not illegal, and in the above situation it's a good thing to try.

Yh, I like to focus on my own game; make myself play better instead of trying to make everyone else play worse with antics that distract from the badminton. It's only a tool to combat players that jump the serve. If the opponent is receiving legally, why would I distract myself with psychological games.

 

[xiaoqiao]

I would have to disagree with everyone here. Doing inferior cheap shots to win cheap points in a social game can win you a game. I see too much of it in social games where every shot goes to the weaker player. (pinning the weaker girl to the backhand side at the back, drive serving the backhand etc). At the end, what have you proven? You can beat up the weaker player?

The stronger player doesn't get to play the game, you don't get to be challenged by the stronger player, the weaker player also doesn't really get to play a meaningful game, and the weaker player can't learn from it. You also develop crappy habits, which that singles player said is accurate. IMO a high serve isn't like a massively inferior opening shot, so I would not agree with the singles player. But consistent flicking or driving and hitting everything to the weak player would be considered that.

Of course, if this is a tournament, all this goes out the window and do whatever is legal to win. Also, if you're bros with each other and just trolling for the fun of it (and the other person doesn't mind), do all the stupid stuff you want.

 

[dnewguy]

About the high/long service in singles.
You do it with forehand or backhand?

With fresh legs I start with short backhand serves but after a couple of games I switch racquets and to long serves (forehand/underarm motion).

Although they are far from perfect but still better than flicking from backhand.
Is there any incentive to flicking long serves from backhand?

 

[SnowWhite]

About the high/long service in singles.
You do it with forehand or backhand?

With fresh legs I start with short backhand serves but after a couple of games I switch racquets and to long serves (forehand/underarm motion).

Although they are far from perfect but still better than flicking from backhand.
Is there any incentive to flicking long serves from backhand?

When most of your serves are short, playing a flick once or twice can be a variation to keep the opponent from moving their base forward when receiving serve. If all your serves are short, the opponent can keep a shorter base and hit your serve earlier, which puts more pressure on you.

It's also effective against players that are slow to move backwards and aren't expecting it. Against some opponents variation works really well, where they won't have trouble against a short serve, or a forehand high serve, but they will have trouble against flicks. Against some opponents I play 50-50 short serves and flicks, which helps disturb their rhythm.

In general, a flick is lower and faster than a high forehand serve, although you can mix up your forehand serve as well, but I don't really do that.

 

[Simeon]

I play at a level you can't call intermediate anymore, so the high serve is a rare sight. And when I say high serve, I mean a high, dropping vertical deep in court kind of serve. I'm not really looking to play variations, since the strength of a high serve is not in its surprise. And since I was tired I was looking to slow the game down and playing faster shots will generally come back faster.

The funny part to me was that he was right when he said that I couldn't play like that at a higher level. There are players that, if they can get behind the shuttle, it doesn't matter much if its on the backline, they can thunder it down and I will lose points. It's just that my opponent yesterday certainly wasn't one of them.

He gave his 'advice' with a tone and attitude as if he is a higher level player, after proving on court he wasn't. It's like he was saying: "if you knew how to play properly I would have won". Which is hilarious.

I was watching world class games from 80's. A lot high serves. I didn't see them smashing any slower than nowadays.