If he can change this he will instantly improve his game... Edward needs to do more of this... We need
to talk about this... After looking through our subscribers footage of them playing we
found some common mistakes that if they can change it will massively improve their game!
yeah these will be applicable to a lot of you out there so as we're going through the video
think about whether you make these mistakes and listen out for our tips on how to change them
we're going to show you both singles and doubles clips but no matter what event you play a lot
of this advice is going to be relevant to you so first up we have Stijn from Belgium who's in
the white shirt and he's actually playing against his brother! Although this is a singles clip what
we saw Stijn doing is something so many people could also improve on and that is the overhead preperation
so if we slow this down you can see that steen is preparing too early which is what
makes him look quite stiff and tense as he hits the shot let's go to the hall to further explain this!
The reason why people start their preparation too early is because they don't trust themselves
to wait and they think they need to be completely ready and almost stood still as they play their shot
but you don't you need to have a smooth continuous motion and you might be thinking being
prepared early still sounds like a good thing well if you're too early and too stiff then you can't
make the small adjustments you need to move to where the shuttle is going. It can also reduce your
power as you're only using your shoulder rather than your whole body in a smooth almost effortless
motion, so let's show you what you should do instead... as you can see here Jenny starts her
racket preparation later than Stijn when she's in the final stage of her movement but she actually
strikes a shuttle earlier and her smooth fluid motion helps her to play a quality controlled shot
Okay let's move on to Anand from Chennai who is again in the white shirt! Anand like a lot
of players could be winning so many more points if he improved his ability to read the game!
Okay so this is a good rally and then this, what do we think this player can do from here?
well his arm is already straight and the shuttle is really close to his racket which means it's
difficult for him to lift so Anand needs to not just recognise this but do something about it
as you can see he's not moving forward at all and his racket is really low down so let's briefly
show you what he should be doing like you can see Greg doing Anand should be moving forwards
with his racket also moving upwards at the same time so that by the time the shuttle is coming
over the net he's there to hit a winner and not on error! And we mentioned his opponent pretty
much can't lift from this position but even if he did it would have to go high over Anand's head
and if he makes a small move forwards like we're suggesting then he would still have time to move
back and get this lift. Anyway we won't dive too much more into this topic as we've actually made a
complete in-depth video on this so if you like Anand need to improve this area of your game then we'll
include that in the description below :) So next up we have Eric from Chicago who's in the blue top
the biggest mistake we saw Eric making which is actually really common with a lot of players is
hitting everything hard from the rear court as you can see his opponents have good defence and they
look comfortable as Eric is hitting it straight back to their rackets and they're able to keep
lifting him, so how can Eric and you fix this big mistake? Well what we'd suggest is that on the shots
where you're not in a good position to smash - maybe you're slightly off balance like Eric was here or
the lift is right on the back line like here then you should use a drop a slice or a smash with less power
so if Jenny plays a good lift I could smash to her racket with full power and she will be
comfortable lifting it back but if i hit it with less power with the same technique she has to lean
forwards to reach the shuttle and is likely to play a worse lift which I can then attack with
full power as i'm in a better position and these different shots are good options for two reasons
firstly you're saving some energy as you're not hitting everything with a hundred percent power
and secondly, the big one if you still look like you're going to hit everything hard then your
opponents will be a lot more uncomfortable in their defence so let's move on to Jason who
is here in the pink and he's from New Zealand not Japan and he like a lot of these players
is pretty good he had good control of his shots and also really nice movement there was just one
major thing missing what we like to call some umph and what we mean by this is that
he needed more speed changes! Yeah so rather than moving slowly back to a lift like this he needs
to try and move faster to get behind the shuttle to hit a higher quality and more aggressive shot
adding speed changes is a piece of advice that will help lots of you out there but it can be
quite hard to do so we have two tips for you the first tip is to reduce the amount of steps you're
taking taking a lot of small steps like this might sometimes be necessary to get yourself
in the right position but most of the time taking too many steps will slow you down.
The biggest difference between Jason and Lee Zii Jia here is the speed and explosivity of these little steps
The second thing is to actively practice these speed changes so when you're playing a match
have in your mind that as soon as your opponent hits a short lift or a weak net shot for example
you put 100% effort into moving quickly to get into a good position if he can change this he will
instantly improve his game! Our next clip was sent in by Soso from the USA who's in the white shoes
again a very good player but in the short clip she sent in we noticed one key area for improvement
if you watch Soso closely here you can see that she stays stood still whilst her partner
is hitting her shot instead she should be moving to a better position whilst watching her partner
play their shot in her peripheral vision. To do this she needs to be making small adjustments
all of the time which will help her be in a much better position when the shuttle does come to her
meaning she can take it earlier and play a better shot! You never see pro players stood still after
they've hit their shot or whilst their partner is hitting their shot, they're always on the move!
Also we need to talk about this what was her partner doing here?! Yeah like we said about Anand she's got
to be moving in and killing that! Yeah so moving on to our next tip which is another quick one
and from another American, this time we have Edward from Seattle in the grey top here he was playing
mixed doubles and in this short clip he sent in we noticed that he was playing too many clears
flat punch clears are okay, pretty good in fact especially in mixed doubles but only when you're
in a good position like Zheng Si Wei was in this clip, so to make the clear effective you need to make
it look the same as your smash or drop shot technique like he's doing here. But in general
the clear should only be used occasionally and instead Edward needs to do more of this
here he's playing a drop shot to keep the attack and actually set his partner up for an easy kill
and we know that in some matches clearing the woman might be an effective tactic as she might be quite
slow moving backwards but definitely at the next level up you're not going to get away with this
and of course if you are in trouble then the high clear is often the right shot choice! Now the final
subscriber we're analysing is Bennett from Germany and he basically sent us in a highlights reel...
again he's a very good player with lots of strengths but we did notice two things that
could really improve his game so the first one is a really small detail but sometimes Bennett
was actually leaning backwards a little bit in his shots like you can see here and this caused him to make
some mistakes rather than having the confidence in his shots and focusing on playing them before
quickly worrying about the next shot. The second tip is to play more net shots because a huge
strength of Bennett's is his attack this is where it's really important to know your strengths on
court and set up the rally to maximise these strengths! A great thing for Bennett to do
would be to watch top players that also have a great attack and a similar body type to his
like Viktor Axelsen to watch how many net shots he plays and when he plays them! Yeah this is
always something we'd advise doing whether you're playing singles or doubles try to pick
one or two players that are better than you and figure out what they're doing well and
try to add this to your game - it's definitely helped us a lot over the years! :D We'd love to do
more of this style of video in the future so if you've enjoyed it please give the video a like
and let us know in the comments below what you thought of these players, pretty good right?!
Yeah definitely! And if you haven't already please SMASH the subscribe button, it's free
and over 70% of you haven't already and we'll hopefully see you on another one very soon bye :-)