Returning the serve in singles seems like it should be easy you have so much space on the court
to hit into but a lot of people struggle with what return of serve to hit, so after analysing over 1000
return of serves from matches on youtube we're going to share six of the best return of you can do!
Firstly we know it's highly unlikely that everyone watching this video is the same
level of player so we're going to give you one easy one intermediate and one advanced return for
both the low and high serve and what you choose to play should depend on your strengths and
weaknesses and also your opponent's strengths and weaknesses and we'll discuss this more throughout
the video :) So let's start with returns from the low serve! The low serve has become more common in the
modern game as we mentioned before we analysed over 1000 serves and returns of serves in
preparation for this video and professional males are serving low 86% of the time
and 14% are high or flick serves and the professional females are pretty different
with 40% low serves and 60% high or flick serves! Of course this will vary
between individuals but generally this is quite an accurate statistic for the split of low
and high serves across all levels of badminton! And despite the serve percentages being different
between males and females we did find some VERY interesting results about the return
of serves which we'll share throughout the video! So our first return is the easiest and
one that players of all levels should be able to do and this is a lift and I know it might
sound basic and boring but it's actually a really good return and there's a reason why
exactly 56% of professional men and women chose to do a lift from the return of the low serve!!
A lift pushes your opponent to the back of the court to create space
and often players are so good at the net playing a net shot off return can invite them in
to play another net shot, this will likely be tighter than yours because when you return
you're playing your shot from behind the service line and if you've been watching
our channel for a while you'll know just how good players like Kento Momota are at the net...
So it's no surprise that Viktor Axelsen lifted almost all of his returns when they played in the
final of the Denmark Open! You always want to avoid giving your opponents the chance to play their
best shots right from the start of the rally! So we have a few key points for you when doing these lifts
Firstly you should vary the corner that you lift to and also vary the height of your lift
for example as you can see here flat lifts can put your opponent under a bit more pressure
meaning you can step up and try to take the advantage BUT these need to be accurate
otherwise they might get you into trouble!
A few more key points for you are to still take the shuttle early
even if you know you're going to play a lift! Don't wait for it to almost hit the floor otherwise it
might be more obvious to your opponent and also put them under less pressure and finally don't
just stand there and watch your lift after you've hit it assess their position and get ready for the
next shot! Now let's move on to our intermediate return from the low serve and this is playing
to the net which despite what we've just said can still be a good return and there are a couple of
varieties you can do from here - either a deep net like this which makes it more difficult for your
opponent to play a tight spinning net shot or you can play a tight net shot if this is good quality
then your opponent can only either play a net shot back or a lift so you can move your positioning
forwards to anticipate the net shot as you should still have enough time to move back for the lift
As with all of these returns you want to be playing them in order to get a certain reply
more often than not they won't be winning shots but if you can play your return with purpose
and look for the next shot then you can get into a good position and maybe win the point on the
shot after this! Better players will always play shots to get shots!! Yeah and similar to the lift
it's important to vary the corner that you hit your net shot to maybe occasionally play a cross
net if you've only played straight up until this point and finally don't make a mistake! If you're
not confident enough to play a tight net then don't go for it it's so important to not give
your opponent easy points! Now our third return from the low serve is the most advanced and this
is a deceptive backhand net shot
A deceptive return is a great shot to use to unsettle your opponents right from the start of
the rally in fact around 10% of the professional players used some sort of deception in their returns
This deceptive net is played from when the serve comes to your backhand side
and you look like you're going to play a straight shot and then at the last second
you turn your shoulders to face this way of your right-handed and this way if you're left-handed
and your shoulder movement is what creates the deception in the shot so it's really important
to get this right and we wouldn't recommend overusing this deception about 10% is a good amount otherwise
your opponents will get used to it and it will no longer be deceptive! Okay so there were our three
returns from the low serve, now let's look at what you should do from the flick or high serve :D
Our first and easiest return is a clear - this return was used around 19% of the time for males
and 36% of the time for females. Similar to what we said for the lift it's used to move
your opponents to the back of the court and it's important to vary the corner to where you clear
it to and really important to hit it accurately with good length, it's so easy for your opponent to
hit their third shot on balance and put you under pressure if you're clearing it short to the middle!
Our next return is a drop or clip, which is a slightly faster drop. This was by far the most
used shot from a flick or high serve used 56% of the time by males and 47% of the time by females to be exact!
From a forehand high serve the drops and clips were varied between both straight and
cross however from a backhand flick serve almost all of these drops or clips were straight -this
is because from the flick serve you're slightly less on balance and if you play cross the easiest
shot for your opponents is a straight block or net shot, this would mean you have to move the longest
distance on the court and potentially take it late and put yourself under pressure!
Our third return from the high serve is a straight slice and this is for more advanced players as it requires a high
skill level to play with accuracy, if you slice it to the middle for example then your opponent won't
have to move and can hit it anywhere and put you under a lot of pressure! The advantage of playing
a slice is that the shuttle typically lands in front of your opponent meaning they have to reach
down and they have fewer options of playing a shot that puts you under pressure this is because you
have a fast swing so it looks like you're going to play a smash but the slice takes the pace off the shuttle!
Now you might be thinking, why haven't we mentioned a smash here? Well when we watched over
100 flick serves to professional males we only saw a few smashes and this is often what happened...
putting yourself under this much pressure right from the start of the rally isn't smart
especially when you might only hit a winner one in every 10 smashes obviously if it's a rubbish
serve or your opponents have rubbish defence then yeah you would play smashes! So there were our six
best return of serves you can do in singles and of course this isn't a complete list of what you
can do but after analysing so many clips we found this is what worked best for the pros and if they
work for the pros they can definitely work for you too! Exactly and to be honest four of these
shots are fairly basic so players of all levels can incorporate them into their game! And we would
highly recommend practicing these before going into a game don't try and play the deceptive net
at 19 all in a third if you've not practiced it beforehand!! Yeah and if you finish practicing your
returns and you want some more ways to practice your game then we actually have 11 different
singles multi-feed programs on our website, these are designed to help you train your singles
consistency, explosivity, power, fitness and much more! If you want to check them out we'll include
a link in the description below and of course if you've enjoyed this video please give it a like,
SMASH the subscribe button if you haven't already and we'll see you on another video :-)