The start of the rally in men's doubles is so important in fact after analysing hundreds of
matches we found that for professionals between 30 and 40 percent of rallies were over within the
first four shots and for intermediate and advanced players this goes up to 40 to 50 percent with many
matches even higher than this! That is crazy so no matter how good you are if you want to level
up your game we'd recommend getting your notepad out as we're about to share the most effective
serves you can do in men's doubles and what you should do afterwards whilst also giving lots of
tactical tips throughout so let's get straight to it! So before we dive into what serve you should
play, where should you both be standing? Well this is really important to get right as it
might be the difference between hitting the third shot early and not getting it at all!
For the person serving hopefully you're stood close to the service line and around the T and
not doing anything crazy like serving from the tramlines - we've seen it done before!
and for your partner who's not serving they should be stood around here. This is a good
position as it's central so you can hopefully reach both sides of the mid court and rear court
from here of course if you find you struggle a lot more to get the returns on the backhand side
then you might move half a step further over but we'll talk more about this in a second! Also if you
find you struggle to see over your partner if he's really tall then again we'd advise moving half a
step further over in One Direction! Now we just alluded to slightly moving your position when
your partner is serving but a lot of this will depend on where your partner serves to so let's
go through some examples of where you should serve to and what you should both do after this...
Firstly we'd really recommend telling your partner where you're serving to. This might feel
weird at first but it hugely improves your organisation so you're both not looking for
the same return and you might watch some pros and think they don't do this but they've also trained
for hundreds of hours together so they know what each of them are doing and they're also better
at knowing what the likely replies are going to be and adjusting accordingly! So let's start with
our first serving set play which begins with a simple serve to the T and what should you do
as the server after this? Well it depends mostly on your opponent's habits and how they set up
to receive the serve as this often limits what they can play but one of the most common return
of serves we see intermediate players doing is trying to push the shuttle into the corner
this is often cross-court because intermediate players are less likely to be as aggressive onto
the return of servers Pros therefore letting it drop to below the height of the net. From here
pushing it cross-court is typically an easier shot as it's more natural and there's also probably a
psychological element of I need to hit it to the other side! Yeah so because this return is
coming upwards you as the server can then look to intercept it. Hitting a winner on the third shot
not only frustrates your opponents but it's also a great feeling and it can win you so many points!
Usually people are more comfortable trying to intercept the third shot on their forehand
side so another great way to encourage your opponents to hit up to your forehand side
is to serve around their body again what reply you should expect will depend on where your opponent
is positioned, their habits and also in this situation exactly where you serve to... If you
serve to their body from the right hand side for example and they can still take a backhand they
will probably play it straight down the line whereas if you serve slightly further across
them so that they have to play a forehand then they will probably play it cross court
instead this is because it's more of a natural swing for your opponent to hit it cross-court
Now you might be wondering what should your partner be doing if you've moved to one side
to look for the interception? Well they should move round and cover the other side to be
ready for anything that comes here. Of course if you successfully intercept the return a few
times your opponent might think about playing something else the next time you serve to the
T or body like a net shot but this is where you can be clever and try to predict this this will
really give you a psychological advantage over your opponent and make them not know what to do
on their returns often either forcing a mistake or a lift, both of which are good results! And if they
never play a net shot then keep splitting side by side. Our second set play is another way to get
your opponents to play directly into your hands this is where you serve low out wide to the tram
line from the left box if you're a right-hander and from the right box if you're a left-hander
after you've done this serve you as the server should move to cover your forehand side and your partner
should cover the middle and the cross court. This is so effective because the most likely reply
from your opponent is a push straight up the tram line so you can quickly move over to cover this
however it's worth noting that this set play only really works if you're fast enough to serve from
the T and then move over in time so what should you do if you're not fast enough? Well here you can
still serve out wide but then your partner would move to cover this straight and you then take half
a step back and cover the cross. It's unlikely that your opponent will be able to lift cross-court
if you serve well so you don't really need to worry about this shot and the other shot which
you're technically not covering is a straight net shot but if they do play this then your partner
can come in and lift it but as we just mentioned remember this and then the next time you do this
low serve to the tramline you as the server can anticipate this net shot reply. Again dominating
the first three shots is about predicting the likely return based on your opponent's habits
and body positioning. Adding variety into your serves makes your opponent uncomfortable as they
can't get into a rhythm and doing this well can often either force a weak reply or even a mistake!
Now a lot of people don't think about serving out wide because it might look obvious to their
opponents that they're going to do this but you can actually play a flick serve out wide with
a very similar technique to almost deceive your opponents! In a lot of situations the flick serve
can be really effective but what should you do after it to ensure that you're set up for success?
Well we've been asked this a lot so here goes firstly you need to have the mindset that a
flick serve is an attacking shot and you want to be in a good position to counter attack afterwards
the best option after flicking out wide is to move back on the same side you flicked from this means
you're covering the cross-court shot allowing you more time to react to the return and because your
partner is behind you they'll be better reacting to the straight shot! You should however change
your position depending on how good your flick serve is so if you've done a really good flick
serve and you can see that your opponent is taking it late and off balance then you should
move your position forwards to be earlier and more aggressive onto the next shot. In contrast
if your flick isn't great and your opponent is looking like they're going to play a good shot
then you should move back into a more defensive of position. Now it's important to mention that
when doing this you shouldn't move too far back you definitely don't want to still be moving
backwards as you're attempting to play the next shot instead you should stay wherever you are as
your opponent is hitting it this will increase the chance of not just getting the shuttle back
but also playing an effective shot! Our fourth serving set play is one that really isn't used
enough and this is a flick down the middle it can be used effectively from both sides but what you
should do after the serve depends on which side you flick from if you flick to a right-handed player
from the left hand side or a left-handed player from the right hand side you would generally move back
on the same side you've served from, like for the flick out wide. But what works really well is when
you're serving to a right-hander from the right side or a left-hander from the left side here we'd
recommend moving to the other side after you've served but staying quite high up on the court your
partner should then move to cover the cross yeah and your partner has to be ready because when you
do this serve the most likely return from your opponent is cross court following their natural
swing this is why we'd recommend your partner to move cross because they have more time to
react and move forwards into the shot and also hopefully they can see where the space is on the court
and where is the space? Well again it really depends on your opponents but two great shots
are a straight drive as it's really hard for your opponent's partner to quickly react to this or a
cross-court block because hopefully the returner should be moving backwards and off balance
now what happens if your serve isn't good and they're not off balance? Well this set play
probably isn't going to work. If your flick is too flat then your opponent doesn't have to move
and if it's too high then it gives them too much time to get behind the shuttle and play a smash
straight at you! And it's important to mention that when setting up like this you're almost completely
ignoring the clear to here but this is the most difficult shot for your opponent to hit if they
do manage to do this then either you or your partner should still be able to move there in time!
Ignoring certain areas of the court is a big part of this video and it will also be a big part
of next week's video where we're moving on to the most effective returns of serve in men's doubles
yeah and as well as playing against literally every level of badminton player over the last
20 years to work out what serves work best as we mentioned at the start of this video we've
analysed hundreds of matches to help us learn the best and worst serves and set players in men's
doubles now if you're wondering how we've managed to watch so many matches when a lot of them are
Geo blocked well we've been using surfsharkvpn who are kindly sponsoring this video a VPN is a
virtual private Network which we've been using for years and Surfshark VPN specifically has so
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this video so now you've got some great set plays you can use when serving in men's doubles
but you're probably wondering what you should do on the return of the serve well we're covering
this in next week's video so keep an eye out or if you're watching this in more than a week's
time then we'll link it here for you and that's it for this video please don't forget to SMASH
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