So you've probably clicked on this video because you don't think you move that fast but can you
still be a good badminton player?! Of course you can! Some of the best players in the world don't
actually move that fast BUT they do have a few tricks to combat this so in this video we're
going to tell you five ways that you can still win badminton matches even if you're the slowest
player in the world! And the first way is to read the game, one of the best examples of this is
Hendra Setiawan a legend of the game and although he isn't one of the fastest players on the world
tour he even won the 2019 All England when he was so injured that he was playing pretty much on one leg!
Given the injury to Hendra Setiawan I think it's going to be fairly obvious what the tactics of the Malaysians will be!
So how did he manage to win one of the biggest badminton tournaments with basically one leg?
Well firstly he's very good at knowing where the shuttle is coming to by reading
his opponent's body and racket positioning which is a basic concept of reading the game but he also
takes this further! Let us explain... so what Setiawan does and you can do too is to leave gaps in the
court after hitting certain shots to tempt your opponents to play into this seemingly open space
But actually you're ready and waiting to move over as soon as your opponent hits it
So to show this again as you can see here I'm waiting on my backhand side and leaving a big gap
on the forehand but that's the shot I'm actually looking for! Now you might be thinking what if they
hit into the space where I've just moved from? That's fine, this is where your partner comes
into play because you've just made a clear and decisive move so they know they need to
cover this area on the court like you can see here! There's also two important things to mention here:
One is that this is mainly for the net and for the mid court it's not as effective in the rear court
and two is that we're assuming you're playing doubles as you're a bit slow, you can of course
read the game like this in singles it's just harder to get away with being slow in singles
As we've already mentioned you want to hit shots into certain places to anticipate what's coming
next but you can also use your shot selection to expose your opponent's movement and gain an
advantage from this and this is the second trick which can be used in both singles and doubles!
Now just think for a second, what do you do when you play someone that has a dodgy knee and can't move?
You play clears right to the back and also drop shots to make them move as much as possible right?!
Exactly! So what shots can you do to avoid this happening to you? Well one shot is a block and
then you move forwards to the net leaving the rear court for your hopefully faster partner!
so you might have slow movement but you can still have a fast racket so another way to
avoid exposing your slow movement is to engage in a fast and flat rally this often encourages
your opponents to hit hard back at you however when doing this you need to be hitting good
quality and accurate shots otherwise it will still be easy for your opponents to move you!
And this brings us on to our third way of winning more matches even if you're slow...
This is improving your shot quality and accuracy and an example of this is your lifting
you could be lifting half court or to the middle not making your opponent move at all
or you could lift accurately to the corners stretching your opponent and making them
take it later and therefore hopefully playing a slightly worse shot as a result
and this isn't just for your lifting improving the quality and accuracy of other areas such as your
serves, return of serves, defence and attack will put your opponent under more pressure
and also take some of the pressure off you and your slow movement!
The fourth way and one of our personal favorites is to add deception into your game
even if you're taking the shuttle really late because you're slow you can use deception so
that your opponent still doesn't know where you're going to hit it then it doesn't matter too much
if you're taking it really late because you still have some control of the rally
Okay so we've shown you four ways that you can still win matches even if you're slow and of
course these are going to help otherwise we wouldn't have mentioned them but if you do
really want to improve then you should of course try and get a bit faster! Even a one
percent improvement can have a huge difference on the outcome of your match so here are a couple of
simple ideas to include in your training; fast feet where you can do a variety of exercises...
and some simple movement drills like this to help increase your efficiency and speed!
But before working on your footwork efficiency and speed it's really important
that you get the technique right so if you're not quite sure about what correct footwork looks like
or you just want a few extra tips then click this video here ^
and as always if you've enjoyed this video please give it a like, SMASH the subscribe button if
you haven't already and share this video with a friend who's also slow - maybe I'll send it to you!! See you next week :D