Alright, assuming you want to play a flick serve from the centre of singles court to the back tramline, like the pros do every now and then, one of the biggest factors I found when I couldn't do it was that I wasn't focusing the power on the shuttle contact. My doubles serve uses a stroking action, rather than a tapping action, but for a singles flick serve, you need the tapping movement and the contact has to be crisp on the shuttle head, otherwise you just dissipate the power. I also have to have a slight bit more backswing to generate enough head speed, but the way I've found around this is just to generally have a longer backswing even from my short serve. Finally, having your strings point downwards at the serve preparation phase helps a lot. This means you have to move the racquet back, then pronate and supinate again. It feels like you're coiling a spring when done right - the shuttle this time I strike in the centre of the racquet in the sweet spot, not on the top edge like for a short serve. Oh, and just to make sure, use a backhand grip, with thumb very firmly able to push against the thickest flat edge of the racquet handle. Best of luck, and hope you get that diagonal flick down soon
Ideally speaking, I would obviously like the trajectory to be slightly higher to force the opponent further back but this would be a good result IMO.
Yes...Yes I do. I forget it's backwards on the backhand. Silly me. I bet everyone's spinning their wrist around at home figuring out which is which xD Edited the post to prevent any further confusion...
Whew, I'm feeling the heat! I know the differences between a flick and a high serve. What I'm trying to do is make the backhand serve more like a forehand high serve. When I'm facing certain opponents, failing to serve or lift high and deep is almost a lost point already. What I'm doing now is just serving low every time, which limits my variety of shots. My standard for a good depth and height is to be able to see my opponent's foot land outside the court should he attempt to play a smash.
Why not just use the forehand high serve then? I don't see why you want to do a high, deep serve off of your backhand, when (i assume) you are capable of doing it on your forehand. What advantage are you hoping to gain?
It's mostly for the deceptive factor, and also because my forehand low serve is awful compared to my backhand low serve. I used to switch back and forth between the forehand high serve and backhand low serve but opponents figured that out soon enough. That being said, my forehand high serve is high and deep enough I've rarely met a player capable of landing a winning smash off it. You make a good point!
I've seen plenty players do the same - if your forehand high serve is good, I think it's fine to use it, even if you opponent knows it's a high serve. As you said, the shuttle is coming down so vertically it's a reasonably easy smash to return anyway. I also don't see any deceptive factor in a true high serve. If you want to make it travel vertically downwards, such that it's hard to smash well, then by nature the shuttle has to travel (very) high. If the shuttle is travelling very high, then your opponent could be completely tricked into thinking you were going to play a short serve, jump forward, and probably still have enough time to run back and play a clear/drop (which is exactly what he'd do to a high serve even if he knew it was coming). The only serves you can gain an advantage by deception have to be quick by nature to put pressure on your opponent - that is either a flick serve (low, putting your opponent off balance), or a short forehand serve (opponent expects a high serve and scrambles to the front). Basically, if you want to use a short serve, you NEED to have a decent flick serve from the same position, otherwise opponent rushes the net and you lost the attacking advantage you tried to create with a short serve. This isn't a requirement for the high serve, because the objective of the high serve is different - you gain an advantage simply by them having feet out the back of the court with an unsmashable shuttle, and you being in the middle of the court, ready for any reply. That said, if you can play a short serve sparingly off of a forehand action when you normally serve loads of high serves, that can act like a flick serve as your opponent is put under time pressure just to retrieve the shuttle.
The deception has limited use when the player has so much time to change their movement after being deceived; and it's also much harder to to disguise the serve when you require so much more power. Overall, I would say it's an impractically difficult shot that's also useless. Whereas if you catch out your opponent with a flick serve, they are in a lot of trouble because they have little time to correct. It's just like flicking from the net in the rally. Can you imagine holding a net shot, and then playing a really deceptive flick that catches your opponent stepping forwards -- except that the flick is like a high serve and gives them lots of time to recover? Again, difficult and useless. Back in the 90's, you would still see old school players using a "deceptive" high serve, where they played a forehand low serve off a high serve action. I remember Fung Permadi using this against a young Taufik. I couldn't understand what he hoped to achieve; he put his serve in the net a few times, and Taufik is so fast the deception would have zero effect. I put it down to outdated coaching.
Maybe -- but "high serve" type of high? Really? There's a range of useful heights for deceptive flicks. Anything from "mid height lift" to "practically a drive".