So mixed doubles defence you might know some tactics such as the man should mainly
lift straight and the woman should mainly lift cross, that's if her defence isn't as good that is!
But there's so much more to it than this there certainly is so if you want to improve
your defence and win more matches then keep watching as we're going to share some great tips
and insight to help you do just this! So we're going to start with the basics; how should you
set up in defence and who takes what shot? Well your exact positioning will depend on where your
opponents are hitting their shot from so we're going to discuss four scenarios and the first
one is if you've lifted to the corner and your opponents are hitting their shot on balance then
we'd recommend being in a setup like this with the player on the straight facing the attacker
and as you can see the player on the straight is slightly further back than the cross-court player
and this is because they need to give themselves more time to react. The cross-court player should
be stood around here slightly further forwards as the shuttle takes longer to travel cross-court
so they have a bit more time to react and as the woman whatever you do don't stay defending
in the middle like this! It's impossible for you to react in time and almost impossible for your
man to cover the whole court around you so you need to move back to help him out! For scenario
2 if your lift is really good and your opponents aren't quite on balance then you should be in a
slightly more aggressive position with your body and racket positioning ready to capitalise on
their shots and maybe even take a step forward which we'll talk about in the next section
It's also really important as the woman that you're always ready in your defence
a standard tactic is that the attacking shot is more than likely coming to you
don't stand there relaxing because you're on the cross so you don't think it's coming to you!
But we don't always hit accurate lifts right to the corner sometimes we hit short lifts that put
you under a lot of pressure so what should we do in this third scenario? Well in this situation
which hopefully you're not in too often you should move your position back to give you
more time to react and also have your racket in this lower position like this ready for any steep
angled smashes here we'd recommend the player on the straight moving over to completely cover
their line and the player on the cross covering the middle and if they play a full cross-court
smash into the tramlines you've just got to accept that this is probably going to be a winning shot
yeah when you have such little time like this you need to cover the shots that have
the highest percentage of being played and this full cross-court shot is one of the riskiest shots
your opponents can play so it's least likely! Now the fourth scenario is one we see a lot
a lift to the middle what should you do here? What we along with many other professional players
do is I as the woman take any attacking shots around my body plus my tramline and I typically
leave the drops and smashes down the middle for Greg as he has a better defence than me
So they were the four scenarios but one big question, who gets the clears? Well if you're in
a defensive position like scenarios one three and four then it's unreasonable to expect the man to
get the clear over the top of the woman. The woman shouldn't be too far forwards in these situations
so she should be able to get the clear even if she just clears it back! You as the man should
still get the clear down the middle though so your woman can move to the front and you can get
in your preferred attacking formation however if your opponents are under a little bit of pressure
like in scenario two and your woman has made a slight move forward in her positioning then
you would spot this and if they clear then you as the man would take it and we won't cover any more
basic setup or technique here as we've actually covered that on a previous video which we'll link
at the end for you BUT one thing we mentioned in this video that is important to mention now is
that you need to move as a pair and what we mean by this is that you need to move across the court
together depending on where you hit the shuttle to like this and if your partner has no idea what you
mean when you say let's move as a pair then maybe share this video with them! Okay so you're now in
your correct setup but what shots should you play in defence and what should you do after you hit these?
Well generally people are better in attack than they are in defence so we need to focus on
how you can turn these defensive scenarios into the attack and how you do this depends on, depends
on I know we keep saying this but it depends on the position you're in plus the strengths and
weaknesses of both you and your opponents so let's go through some examples specific to mixed of what
you can do to either turn defence into attack or even put your opponent under enough pressure to
force a mistake... so if your female opponent isn't comfortable at the back then you want to try and
force her to the back and there are two ways you can do this; the first way is pretty simple, you
can flick the woman at the start of the rally and then keep her at the back if you don't easily win
the point from the woman being at the back after a few lifts the man is likely to try to move back
and force the rotation which leaves big gaps at the front of the court that you can block into!
The second way is to try to place shots to make the man move forwards when your opponents are in a
side by side position this could be by blocking it in front of him to bring him in and then you will
lift to the woman after this and it's important to mention that these two examples require both you
and your partner to be comfortable lifting to the back with good accuracy! Example number two of what
shots you can do when defending your mixed doubles is for when the man is slow around the back - here
you should move him quickly around the court with fast lifts and then apply pressure by moving up
the court like this. Example number three is if the woman doesn't like to move across the net
and she stood on the T like she has super glue stuck to her feet!! Here we would recommend focusing
on using your blocks and fades turning the shuttle to make her move across the full width of the court
after you've hit these blocks you as the woman should move forwards and follow the shuttle
as long as your opponents are going to be taking it from below the height of the net that is and
the woman should go in even if it's the man that blocks again as long as it's a good block making
your opponents take the shuttle below the height of the net! Now it's really important to make
these moves forward both quickly and decisively otherwise you'll leave a big gap for the player
at the net to play a simple net shot and you'll be straight back into a defensive position. If the
woman doesn't make a quick move forwards then it's also harder for the man to quickly move to cover
any shots past her which he needs to do! Okay this next example is one of the most common and where
we see a lot of players go wrong so if I is the woman am stretched out to the side of the net and
my partner behind me is then under pressure and needs to lift out then he should try to lift cross
court with height and then move so he's defending on the straight this is so important as I'm almost
completely out of the game here so this gives me time to move back into a defensive position
and being on the cross means I have more time to react! If there was more of a gap on the straight
then the man would of course lift here but he needs to make sure that he lifts with height
so that he gives the woman time to recover back on the cross! Lifting with height also makes it harder
for the attacking player as it's harder to time the shuttle when it's coming down onto the strings
like this as you hit the side of the shuttle as opposed to when it's coming flat onto the strings
it's much easier to time! So there were four different examples of how you can use defence
to your advantage or how you can just stay in the rally BUT we have three more bonus points for you...
Firstly it's really hard to play a soft block off a full power smash you just can't get the control
necessary to play the shot with quality if you want to hit a softer shot then we'd recommend
using a fade which we've discussed on our previous advanced doubles defence video! Secondly don't feel
the need to block straight away as this is when your opponents are most likely to be ready for it
so you might want to play another lift or a drive to push your opponents back
before playing your block and moving forwards! And finally, don't be predictable! Even if you're under
pressure and think that you can only play straight just using half turns can be really effective! Players
often like to move in straight lines so even making them turn a tiny amount will make them take
the shuttle slightly later as you're not playing it directly onto their racket. Them taking the
shuttle here as opposed to here really does make a huge difference and can get you out of trouble!
Defence is an area of the game that can always be improved, we've been training for 20 years and
still practice our defence almost every day so if you want to learn more about defending
including different techniques for different shots and just general doubles tactics then
check out this playlist here OR if you missed the first two parts in this huge mixed doubles series
which has taken us over 100 hours to create then check out this playlist here
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