Badminton books and my coach always told me that I should mainly use long serve in singles, says, 70/30 or 80/20, since you can get a longer time to be ready in your position, and short serve is only for suprising your opponent. However, watching nowaday professional matches such as worldchampionship, I found in men's singles, they mainly use short serves instead of long serves, forehand or backhand. And even in women singles, girls use more and more short serves too. My guess is that the trend today for professional players is, by serving short and good netplay techniques, they can gain an advantage in front of net and therefore have an opportunity to attack. It's easier than rally between four corners and smashing from baseline, since nowaday almost all professional can return smash from baseline due the technology improvement of raquets. What do you guys think? What's your ratio between long and short serves? If technique is not a problem(can serve long and short using forehand, and serve long and short using backhand), what would you mainly to serve? I know somehow it depends on opponents' position. But just let's assume your opponent is in a perfect position, just in the middle, then do you have a certain ratio in mind?
it depends on the opponent. nowadays most professional singles players have such devastating smashes it is wiser to serve short. just imagine serving long to Xia, the shuttle will be nailed to the ground on the first reply! with a richer mix of short service, you are forcing your opponent to stand further up when receiving thus doesn't give away the high lift that much. however, likely that *your* regular opponents won't be able to do that, and in fact, if you serve high and deep, you will be able to pin him to the back court instead. when i play singles, i usually serve a very high and deep service that land vertically very near the baseline. if i see the receiver standing further back, i will hit a short service instead.
Agree with Kwun and your coach. Much depends on the skills of your opponent. Unless your opponent has very good skills and techniques, has a very powerful smash, which most of us social players don't, serving high and deep most of the time is a good tactic. The occasional short and flick serve for variety and surprise, depending on any change in the ready position and physical condition of your opponent, is recommended to keep him on his toes and to stretch his resources to the maximum. Quite rightly put by your coach, the long and high serve gives you more time to get into ready position for the subsequent return. The short service will come back to you faster and if not served properly, allows your opponent to take control or even to tap it down for a kill. Remember it is easier for your opponent to move forward than backward, which he has to do to return your high serve. In addition, a perfectly executed high serve, ie. high into the baseline and falling perpendicularly to the floor (Kwun's forte), is terribly difficult to return let alone to smash, especially by simple mortals like your average player. Here, you need to put on your thinking cap and be observant to what your opponent is doing. But never try to hurry your serve. Take your time and collect your thoughts! Always think about giving your opponent your 'dream' serve which you have visualized beforehand to the point where you think the shuttle should fly and land.
Old school coaches recommend high serves in singles, especially those that go up very high and which drop almost perpendicular to the baseline T junction. The father of the very high serves in singles was a certain Dr. Dave Freeman, who successfully used this against the great Wong Peng Soon of Malaysia. Current coaches are more practical: they have no preference for high serves over low serves just because it was the norm before. Now, low serves are as frequently used, if not more so. In singles, you use all sorts of serves, low, high, flick or even drives. Your choice is dependent on your assessment of how best to exploit the weakness, and neutralize the strength, of your opponent. There is an increasing use of the short serves in singles in top level badminton, as attack from the outset is important. If you serve high you are are giving away your advantage to allow your opponent to have more options. It is not easy to serve very high to have the shuttle drop within 1"-2" from the base T junction. If you serve a high service short or to the side line, you are in trouble. I used to play singles and I have employed all sorts of serves to change the course of a game. Did you notice that China's Xia used the high serve time and again against Malaysia's Wong Choon Han in last year's World Championship final? Against other opponents, Xia reverts back to the low serve more often. For non-top level players the high serve in singles is preferred, especially against a weak attacking player who is weak in his attacking clears or smashing.
