In our first advanced defence video we briefly mentioned the different
types of defensive shots and how each of these affect your racket,
court and foot positioning however as you progress your game further there's much more
than just a simple block drive and lift! So in today's video we're going to take you through
each of these different varieties and also the tactics of when you use them, so let's get to it!
Right we all know what a block is and if you don't go back and watch
our fundamentals defence video which we'll put up here for you but now we're
going to cover two different types of blocks the first one being a soft block
this is a shot you would use when you see a bit of space at the front of the court
it might be that the net player is further back looking for the interception like this... This might
be because you've done some drives in defence in previous rallies so they're anticipating the shot
the soft block would therefore be a good shot to play to make
your opponents take the shuttle below net height and maybe play a weak net
shot or even a lift therefore turning defence into attack in just one shot!
you should however not buy a soft block if your
opponent was in a good position at the net as this would be the likely result!
this is of course unless you take the shuttle earlier and hit a good quality shot with width
but this soft block is really hard to do off a powerful smash so instead you might use a fade
and this is the second type of block we'd use for this shot it's still soft and controlled but this
time you want it to land just past the service line. It's a great shot if your opponent's really
close to the net because then they have to make the decision whether it's theirs to take or their
partners behind them! The fade is also less risky than the soft block to the net as you're not going
for those tight margins it's probably less likely to result in a lift but might pull your opponents
out of position for you to capitalise on the next shot! As with the soft block you would try and
play the shot to the sides of the court away from your opponent at the net!
There's only really one main type of drive and how effective this will be will depend on your position in defence, so
if you're facing a really powerful smash then you may only be able to play a reactive drive upwards
however if you play this with good placement and a short swing then it might encourage your
opponents to attack it and then with this short swing you're then ready to counter on the next shot
Of course with most new shots and techniques you want to put them into practice before you play a
match and even if you're a visual learner it's still good to grasp the concept by practicing
it first! So you can practice this situation by using this routine as you can see the feeder
smashes down you drive back up at their partner and then quickly turn it away. If you don't have
three people you can emulate the smash like we're showing here and then hit the next shuttle cross
this is a routine we do a lot in training it really helps us to work on the technical defence
and everything we've mentioned in our previous defence videos such as having a relaxed grip
and racket out in front of you! And we'll talk about how you can play a cross-court defence
both with power and control in future videos so make sure you subscribe so you don't miss out!
So moving on to the lifts there are three different varieties of lifts all with potential
different outcomes. Firstly we have high open lifts and the purpose of these lifts is to try and work
your opponents from corner to corner constantly making them move but actually giving them time
and this is because the accuracy and length of your lifts will force them to continually play
building shots and because they can only play building shots the net player will then try and
rotate out to help the rear court player exposing a gap in the front court this style is commonly
used in women's doubles and is also very much suited for slower shuttles where your big lifts
aren't in danger of landing out all the time and you can defend a bit more easily! Your high lifts
mean that you can set yourself ready in defence for you to spot the potential gaps on the other
side of the court and finally high lifts make it harder to hit powerful shots this is because the
shuttle's coming down like this meaning that you're hitting the side of the shuttle rather
than the cork coming onto the strings making it easier to time and create power! Next you have your
regular height lifts these have enough height to get over the net player but not enough height for
the rear court player to get comfortably behind the shuttle, it's your most common lift for a
normal speed shuttle and it's important when using these lifts to focus on accuracy and not
just lifting to the same place multiple times to make it easy for your opponent! You want to try and
get your opponent stretching and off balance to force a mistake or turn this defence into attack
You can also use flat lifts for this purpose and this is our final style of lifting
the idea behind this is that it reduces the amount of time your opponents have to get to the shuttle
hopefully forcing a mistake or them playing a shot you can take advantage of! Generally this style is
played with faster shuttles and this is for two reasons; firstly your opponents are less likely to
be able to play steep angled shots from your flat lifts meaning that their smashes are more likely
to go out of the back of the court and the second reason to flat lift is that it's easier to control
so you might not hear as many lifts out the back of the court, however do be careful of lifting too
flat so that it's easy for the net player to intercept it and as we're showing now I've
definitely been a victim of this before!!
So for all of these shots that we've covered today it's best to practice these in a 2v1 or 2v2 scenario
so you can really understand the quality of your shot! If you're just practicing in a 1v1 then it's really hard to judge whether your shot quality will
actually put your opponents under any pressure! We're going to cover how to go from defense
into attack in your partnership more in a future video as well as how to hit effective cross-court
defensive shots, so make sure you subscribe to the channel if you haven't already so you don't miss
out on those! Now if you want some new badminton equipment then check out our amazing sponsors
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today's video if you want to watch another video check out one of these we're about to show now...