The other day we had a little tournament at my club. I'm definetely NOT the best player out there. Anyways, I made it past the first two rounds. In the QF the tie went to the deciding 3rd set. I was trailing but just by a couple of points.

It was then that my left Yonex shoe split open...yes I mean that literally. The front end just "popped" and was hanging. Needless to say I had to "retire" and my opponent went thru to the next round.

Once again, I am NOT the best player at the club and *may* have even lost that QF tie, but you can imagine how bummed I am to lose out not by playing but because of what happened with my shoe!

As a side note, I purchased that shoe in Indonesia sometime in 1994 or 1995. Back then if you were to do the conversion, I got it for just about US$4!!! Served me pretty well for that price, don't you think? Another positive note is that I'm glad I didn't fall and injure myself when the shoe "popped." But why did it choose to pop during a tournament and not during regular game playing days!!!

Ok, just thought I'd share this story with you all fellow badminton folks. So this ever happend to any of you???

Whoa! that sounds like quite the experience.
Glad you're ok though.

I haven't heard of any shoe popping stories during tournaments before.. maybe it's a sign of some sort?
Maybe you are to become #1 in your country?
Ok maybe not...
But thanks for this interesting tid bit.
No it hasn't happened yet, and I don't intend to have that happen, because that would just suck.

I've blown a shoe or two in my time. Always during a tournament too.
I guess it's because you play that much harder in a tourny then you do practicing.

yes, tried that too, but just during normal club play, i think Yonex shoes wears down very quickly, although they are light and the gripping is good when its new. i used to buy Yonex shoes, and i have to change them every 5 months, i played like 8 times a week. but now i changed to some "Head" indoor shoe. it served my for a year and its pretty good.
so i won't recommend Yonex shoes cos they wear down too fast...
my two cents

Nothing exactly like that happened, but in May 2000 I stepped out of my left shoe during a tournament and played the rest of the rally on one shoe and one sock. We won the rally, too, probably because our opponents started laughing. In fact they were laughing so hard even after the rally was over that we had to wait before continuing. The shoe never came untied, just loosened during what I remember as about a 10 or 12 shot rally.

Does anyone know a drill that will teach me how to do this when I need to? I'd like to make it part of my strategy :-))