Mens Doubles Techniques/Stratagies

[Mike]

What are some effective strategies that u can use?
Is there any kind of shots that should not be used often in doubles?
What's the most effective shots?
Thanks!

[Kenny]

Attack the weaker player, avoid lifts if all possible. When you're forced to make a lift from a smash, always lift cross court.

Your quality of serve and the return of serve are the most important skills.

The most effective shots are deceptive shots that force your opponents to make a weak lift for you to start the attacking shots. Matches are won more often with attacking play than defensive play.

[mongoose]

See my thread below.
Look for the book, "Winning Badminton Doubles" by Jake Downey.
If you can find it, it is easily the best book on badminton doubles.
The whole book teaches you on doubles strategies, positioning etc.
It has gotten me from a total beginner in doubles to a competitive doubles player in a short span of 4-6 months.
Unfortunately, I've lost contact with a guy I knew who had a copy.
So I'm looking for a copy myself.
If you manage to find one, please let me know.

[Pebulutangkis]

hey i also want that book!!!! i'm also a doubles player!!!

well i have some tips at my website <a href="http://shuttler.tripod.com/shuttler/tech_doubles.htm">click here</a>

[GATX102]

Hi, ive been playing badminton fr about a year now and have become familiar with the rules

can ppl help me with some techniques or stratagies to use while play or recieving a serve and such?

[bigredlemon]

A. You'll get lots of answers if you search

B. I'll add something "new" i guess... If you are playing offensively you might want to drive the bird back at the server or slice/drop it at the front corner. This allows you to stay in the offensive position of front/back. If you want to be vary agressive, you'll be standing at the front of the line waiting to smash any shot that's slightly high down. You might want to leave this to later on when your footwork and reaction time allows you to use this effectively. If you want to play defensively you'll clear it to the back and switch to the side-to-side position.

[LazyBuddy]

Purely speaking about my personal experience:

1. Try to concentrate attacking one opponent (the weak one, prefer), take the other one virtually out of the game.

2. Trust ur partner. If u can't finish them off, setup for ur partner by pulling them out of their comfort formation / position.

3. Need to develop "chemistry" between u and ur partner. Defensivly, need to know where the other is, and keep rotating if necessary.

Easy to say, hard to do... :o

[jwu]

if you score more points than the other team. you will win. =)
best thing you can do is to get to know your partner. If the two of you play well together, your game will be seamless. once you have this understanding between the two of you, even if one of you have a weakness, there will be ways to cover it and together as a pair, you will have a perfect game.

[wilfredlgf]

Originally posted by LazyBuddy
Purely speaking about my personal experience:

1. Try to concentrate attacking one opponent (the weak one, prefer), take the other one virtually out of the game.

2. Trust ur partner. If u can't finish them off, setup for ur partner by pulling them out of their comfort formation / position.

3. Need to develop "chemistry" between u and ur partner. Defensivly, need to know where the other is, and keep rotating if necessary.

Easy to say, hard to do... :o

Point 1 is a good, and can also be enhanced by a sudden change in focus in the middle of fierce smash-return rally.

You'd catch the other guy with the element surprise. Perhaps once out of every five of the return could be a weak float to the middle of the court. That's when to kill.

I simply love it when that happens. :D

As for Lazybuddy, how do you communicate with your partner on the court during the game? Do you shout or do some signal?

When my partner is at the back and return is high, I always shout "Ha!" to somewhat 'encourage' him to hit a rocket to the other side.

I wonder if that is bad for concentration.

[Aotis]

the articles section on techniques has some extensive discussion about doubles that you might wanna take a look. It's very helpful for beginners-intermediate players.

[GATX102]

hhmmm.... thx you guys =D

[LazyBuddy]

Originally posted by wilfredlgf

As for Lazybuddy, how do you communicate with your partner on the court during the game? Do you shout or do some signal?

When my partner is at the back and return is high, I always shout "Ha!" to somewhat 'encourage' him to hit a rocket to the other side.

I wonder if that is bad for concentration.

Well, for the "on court communication" it's really depends on different situation.

About 2 yrs ago, when I had a consistant partner (always play together for like 1 - 1.5 yrs), we develop our relationship via time. At the later stage, we just happen to know each other's move / preference so well. There's no need to really have to scream on the court, and 95%+ time (maybe even higher than that) we know where the other one is and what he will do.

However, currently, I just have to team up with various ppl each game (partner too busy in school and gf). So, sometimes, very easily we run into each other, or just watching the shuttle hit the ground w/o any moves.

Therefore, my conclusion is, regardless the individual skill (of course, experience ones pick it up faster), it takes some time to develop the partnership. If u have a certain partner, it's going to help a lot in ur double games. If not, even though "shout" (like, Me me me!!! ) might disturb the concentration a little bit, it still might be a necessary method to avoid "collision" on court.

[bluejeff]

One thing I have come up with is to "hear".
When I play in doubles, I pay a lot of attention on hearing my partner's movement.
I know I have no time to look back, and hearing is helping me a lot on making sure he is behind me or not.

[Joanne]

My friend and I are gonna play in a doubles competition, but we're not great doubles player and stuff like that (This competition is only opened to doubles, so you see why we had to pair up :mad: )

Anyway, the main problem is, we don't co-ordinate well. Both of us play AGAINST each other, but never together. See why now? We've played singles too much. :(

How do we learn to co-ordinate? Sometimes we both rush for the shuttle, sometimes both of us expects each other to take it!!! Need help here... Thanks.

[ArchDevil145]

I wish I had a consistent partner.

As for me, my coach always said if your in the front, stay there and vice versa.

[wilfredlgf]

Rule of thumb when it comes to doubles:

When you are ....

1. under attack - split, one in each box and get ready for possible smashes, drops etc. The idea is to give the opponent very little 'empty' space to target.

2. attacking - one person is likely to attack from the rear, so the other should move gradually to the net, racquet choked high up and raised, ready to pounce on any weak returns.

Before you hit a return ...

1. check out the position of your opponents; to drop the bird low to the net when an opponent is already there waiting for you is not a very wise thing to do. To be on the receiving end of a kill is bad enough, imagine being hit from point blank range ... :D

2. check out the position of your partner; if he/she is close to the net and you intend to lift it high, lift it HIGH; too low and your partner is likely to become the target of their counter-attack and he/she (your partner) may not have enough time to realize what you did and get into position (player per box)

3. Target vacant spaces; makes it harder for opponents to return, and chances of confusion would also arise.

When you serve ... (seen from bird's eye view)

1. horizontal positioning : both should be in the middle, very closely, or on the white line itself.

2. vertical positioning : one should be close to the net as possible, the other at the baseline.

Tricks you can try :

1. Stop the bird; esp when your team is attacking, the person in front could keep the racquet raised and wait for an opportunity to deal a surprise by bouncing the shuttle off the racquet, letting it tumble over the net when the opponent hasn't recovered from their previous return, or when both of them are far at the back. Two schoolmates of mine in 92' - 96' could execute this trick to perfection.

2. Drop/smash the shuttle to the middle of the court; opponents may get confused on who should return

3. Drive the shuttle down the sides, low and quick; most players concentrate on the centre of the court where the actions are, forgetting that the side of the courts are IN.

4. Shout or make clear commands if you think you should be the one initiating the return. "Me!" or "Woo!" or "Makan!" is what I have heard the most. :)

5. Attack the weakest player, as kenny had pointed out. Adding to that, try targetting on one guy for a few shots, then change your focus suddenly to the 'idle' guy. He/she may be caught by surprise and may bring about weak replies that you can capitalize.

Here's a website URL that speaks a lot about badminton techniques etc, and dedicates one section to doubles and mix doubles. The last time I check, May 18, the site is no longer there. I hope it comes back online soon, the articles are pretty informative.

http://badminton.hypermart.net/badminton.html

Still, most important of all, play and practice doubles with your partner.

Also, support him/her. Everybody makes mistakes. You win as a team, you lose as a team.

These are the basics. Anybody care to add?

[ntpm]

The book "Winning Badminton Doubles" by Jake Downey is available online for free!!!
check http://www.badmintonbooks.com/

Hope this helps!!!!

[Joanne]

Okay, thanks for the tips. My partner and I are very good friends, so we don't need to worry much about misunderstandings etc. ;)

thanks for that link! Looks like we've got a lot of practice to do! :)

[wilfredlgf]

I have the offline version of the webpages for beginner, intermediate, advanced guide for badminton from the aforementioned link :

http://hypermart.badminton.net

I've checked and the website is still missing. If any of you need it, I could email you the zip of all three sections.

Cheers. :)

[Joanne]

Say... I can't goto the badmintonbooks site. Can you please email me those offline pages? I'm sure they'll help me a lot. :)

[kameha2]

theory and practical are two different things, you can read as much as you can, but without proper training, i dont think you can improve.

[Joanne]

Originally posted by kameha2
theory and practical are two different things, you can read as much as you can, but without proper training, i dont think you can improve.

hehe... Don't worry... I've been training for a long time already... ;) Since 5... long? Anyway, if you mean my partner and I train together we'll be doing that during the school holidays...

BTW, welcome to BF!!! :)

[wilfredlgf]

Oh, sorry. Don't have the badmintonbooks offline stuff, only the hypermart stuff.

[ntpm]

I've just tried this site and it works for me. One thing to note is that it is a Flash site. If you do not have the Flash plug in, the site will probably not work for you. So if you do not have Flash, download the plug in and try it again!