Best way to improve defense?

How's your footwork & preparation, Is your stance correct & ready early enough?

Practice receiving smashes will help.

Choice of racquet will help too. I've switched away from head heavy Ti10's & chose a mp99 over mp100/at700 as it feels slightly faster.
Depending on the power of the smasher I've started to drive smashes back if i'm in a crosscourt position & stick to a solid backhand for down the line defending.

 

Sometimes the most important things are also the simplest things. Stand ready with your racquet foot forward and take ALL smashes on the backhand. The smash return is made easy because the wrist will more readily snap outwards than inwards. Also, both sides of the body can be defended with the backhand return, whereas only the forehand side is covered with the forehand return.

An attacking shot is usually a smash or a drop, so the feet are positioned well to cope with drops.

Always be ready, however, for the odd drive or attacking clear.

 

My defence is pretty good in my opinion (either that or my opponents are pretty poor attackers) and I put it down to two things. Reflexes and wrist power.

Reflexes:
I've always had pretty quick reflexes for whatever I did. I have no idea if this sort of thing can be trained though. In fact, I hardly hear any discussions about defence between the people who I play with. But whatever happens, it's by no means the only important thing in good defensive play.

Wrist strength:
This is what saves me from getting a hammering and taking off the pressure. If I only had good reflexes, then that just accounts for getting the shuttle back over the other side of the court. When I was younger, it often resulted in presenting my opponent with easy kills or easy attacking clears, drives, drops or whatever so I was constantly on the back foot, under pressure. Nowadays, I can get the shuttle to the back of the court by just using my forearm and wrist (don't have time to bring my entire arm into it with a swing). It's an aggressive defensive shot which usually catches out the people who charge forewards, anticipating an easy kill straight after a smash.

Not having the wrist power when I was younger wasn't so bad if I could get some decent drops from being smashed at. But I play as much doubles as singles nowadays so it's not hard to see why I had to develop the necessary wrist power to add another dimension to my game.
Good luck with your search for the best defence.

 

Stepping forward is a part of turning defense into attack, but you still have to use it judicially. Taking a smash at chest height is good as long as you take it in front of you, and not actually close to your body.

 

Ask a training buddy to stand by the net and rapid fire shuttles at you. I've heard that's how the Indonesian national team trains. About 10-15 minutes per session should do the trick. Your stance is also very important. You have to crouch down and hold your racket in front of you. It's crucial to hit the shuttle in front of you. Some players hold their rackets at waist height, I prefer to hold it at chest height because I'm a bit small (5'7"). Vary your returns from drop shots, to drives, to lobs. That's how you turn from defensive plays to offense.

 

Video

There is a video name "Playing to win" by Lee Char Bok(I may have his name wrong) which is very solid. I highly recomended that.
Han

 

when returning smashes, I tend to make the myslef to knee down a little. I found that, once if I am lower than the net, I can return any smashes easily since all smashes have to be higher than the net anyway.

 

Try to do a 2-to-1 drill as my friends and I did while waiting for the others to arrive.

Offensive:

One person will constantly be in front, ready to pounce on any weak returns, be it through taps or net play. This person will act as some sort of a 'caution' - if he can kill your returns, then you must do something about your defence. Same time, he can practice on net returns. This person too, I believe, will be practicing A LOT on switching grips.

One person will constantly be at the back, always pouncing the shuttle down, be it drops or smashes. Do a mix of both for variety. This person is the attacker. This will be a perfect opportunity to practice the ultra-cool jump smashes and deception.

Defensive:

One person will be under constant barrage, from smashes to drops. This person must do good returns to make sure the ATT-front will not be able to capitalize on the situation. Same time, it improves speed as you're constantly on the move to make sure your returns are good.


We did a half-court practice instead of full as some of us are already tired from the earlier games, but that works well as we are able to focus better on doing just that - defence and focused attack.

 

Yeah that pic is pretty much the way we were trained to do it, racquet low, body weight down, knees really bent. Then again that coach trained in Denmark for a while. HAP had the more classic stance but then again she never played mixed so never had to receive hard men's smashes and the women in that era didn't jump smash much ;p

 

I think it depends.

I think the position of the racquet should depends on the situation.

lets take two hypothetical situations as examples.
1) the defender is forced to lift, being on the defensive, one should lift up high and as deep as posible.

2)the defender is pressuring the attacker by lifting flat clears to the sides, meaning the defender is trying to force his way into attacking position.

In situation 1, the attacker has plenty of time to prepare his attacks, meaning he could do anything from a jump smash or a jump-sliced-drop. This makes it a lot easier for him to make a strong smash with a lot of angle.
In situation 1, my stance would be like that of JR's, legs far apart, lowered body, and racquet low. why you ask? because with the leg's far apart, it's easy to defend against smash that are placed FAR AWAY from the body and vice versa(try it and see) racquet low because a good angled smash is much more dangerous than a flat one.

in situation 2, the defender is trying to reverse his role as defender to attacker, the point is to be agressive, and hence he makes a flat return, hoping the attacker will make a flatter smash, but of course the defender has much less time to react, this is a trade off. Anyways, the point I am trying to make is that the flatter you return the bird, the more agressive you must be and the higher you must hold the racquet. Two reasons, one is to continue hitting flat shots, and two, since you hit a flat shot, the bird is not going to be flat as well.

I think the important issue in defense is knowing what kind of attack the attack will make. A high angle smash placed at your face/body or a low angled smash place away from the body(which side?). Experienced players can often anticipate this, hence their defense is much better. SO practice is not the only factor, but experience is as well important.

 

I thought that learning to defend with a backhand bias leads to a weakness which can be exploited at higher levels of play (e.g. smash at racquet shoulder). Receiving with a forehand bias like the Koreans do or something like that gives a more aggressive return as well.

IMO, both methods are good as long as you make them work.

Most important thing about defense: STAY LOW. This takes leg strength to do it a whole match.

Phil

 

Ya! This method is very good! You can get someone at the net and throw the shuttles to you. He can varies the the angle, speed and placement of the shuttles. Another method is to play the shuttles with the wall.

 

The best way to return a smash in singles is different from doubles.
In singles the best reply is a return drop shot to the net. If your opponent is well back from the net you can even 'loop' it 6" above the net, ala Yang Yang, so the shuttle drops very close to the net. If you want a war of attrition, lob/lift to the baseline. At all times, try to take the shuttle early and find ways of turning defence to attack.
In doubles, returning 3 or more smashes high to the attacker may be impressive but you are still defending! If possible, try to swing returns fairly low across court to create error and exhaustion, and to open up a vulnerable backhand.
Better still, use the half-court push, which should be taken early, to put the shuttle between the two attackers in a place that will force them away from their front/back attacking formation. You can use the tap or dab against a smash that is flat. The objective is to use all means to turn defence into attack. Taking the shuttle early is the means to this objective. The Indonesian doubles players like to hold their racquets with a shorter grip. I wonder why? To take the shuttle early with better control?

 

For quicker response/reflex. You can swing a racquet faster when you hold the grip shorter. Weight is balanced towards the 'centre', shorter fulcrum, less force required to lift the racquet head. It is also more stable - any powerful shots can be deflected back without too much vibration.

The problem here comes when the shuttle flies and drop over to the side where you have to stretch. This is where a shorter grip comes as a disadvantage.

I'm not sure but I think only Candra and Sigit hold the racquet that way, right?

 

Sometimes it's no the defence itself that makes for a poor defence. A deep and high lift to the back does wonders for "helping" your defence. The bird is harder to hit, coming straight down and from the back line, and it gives you more time to be ready.
Often players will try to push their lift to the corner in the hopes of catching the player off guard but often the smash will just come back hard and while you are still moving back.

 

DEFENSIVE DRILLS

Because attacking shots can be so tiring, it is best to get 3 (or 4) players...

Attacker1 (A1)
Attacker2 (A2)
Defender1 (D1)


*** DRILL #1 (3 players, half crt)

A1 pos:back shots:smashes down-the-line
A2 pos:front shots:net push
D1 returns: (down the line) clears & flat drives

Routine
(1) D1 clears to A1
(2) A1 smashes down-the-line
(3) D1 drives down-the-line
(4) A2 does a PUSH to D1's feet
(5) goto (1)

Routine modified for better Players
A1 can choose smash or drop
A2 can choose PUSH or net shot (not too tight to keep the drill going)
This will cause D1 to test footwork


*** DRILL #2 (3 players, full crt)

A1 pos:right back shots:smashes down-the-line
A2 pos:left back shots:smashes cross-crt
D1 pos:ONLY right-half crt returns: (down the line & cross-crt) clears

Routine
(1) D1 clears to A1
(2) A1 smashes down-the-line
(3) D1 cross-crt clear
(4) A2 smashes cross-crt
(5) goto (1)

Routine modified for better Players
A1/A2 can choose smash or drop into D1's half-crt only


*** DRILL #3 (4 players, full crt)

A1 pos:right back shots:smashes down-the-line
A2 pos:left back shots:smashes cross-crt
A3 pos:front center shots:net push
D1 pos:ONLY right-half crt returns: clears & drives to mid-crt side alleys

Routine
(1) D1 clears to either A1/A2
(2) A1 smashes down-the-line / A2 smashes cross-crt
(3) D1 drives cross-crt / drives down-the-line
(4) A3 tries to cut-off drives and PUSh to D1's feet, goto (1)
(5) otherwise, goto (2)


Because players may stand differently when defending, (ex/ backhand bias on racquet-side half-crt, and feet/torso parallel to the net on non-racquet side half-crt), the above drills should switch to defending the other half of the crt.

Hope this helps! Have fun trying!