So i played with this guy (doubles), he was holding an arc10 . Mine was a standard 100-120 gram racket. Ive got no problem with him with the low serve , flicks do . Im weak with flick serves , my standard servereturn position is like what the pros are doing so that got me running to the end line and losing stamina . My flick return cant be called a smash , more of a clear (because of my racket) . So , when i clear , he was smashing like theres no tommorow (seriously). My defense fell , all my smash blocks was late (The shuttle flew past it already) , i dont know if it is my racket or my alertness (Ive scored 2700000 in 2fuse) but everytime that guys smashes , we always fail (I think it is my noob partner). So the score was 7 21 , 9 21 (favor of him) . From then on , i swore to be better , to beat this guy . And to do that you must help me , give me some advices,give me drills , trainings! Help will be greatly appreciated(sorry for my grammar , spellings , etc , im no american)
For the time being u have not trained/improved, stand back a bit further back than usual. However, keep an eye for a low serve that might goes wide to the side. Also stand on your balls of yr feet, it is easier to jump back to return his flick serves. Also, make sure your clear returns are as deep and as high as possible. Really high n deep clears are not that easy to smash n such smashes are much easier to defend.
A good clear might help you in this case. A good clear usually are hard to smash and you have a lot of time to prepare to defence. Attacking lob is one thing that I found quite useful in such situation. But if you are trying to avoid to clear the shuttle, I suggest you follow what sautom88 mentioned. Standing too front like pros does might expose your weakness to the opponent.
as was mentioned already take a step to half step back to give your self some time to prep and get an offensive lob in. as a result the server might just change it up seeing that you are no longer so close to the t. You keep standing there and I'll keep taking all the advantage you will give, mix it up other than that maybe work on some foot work and conditioning? shouldn't be losing stamina to step back to retrieve don't think. and hopefully as you may have noticed none have mentioned equipment to this point. doesn't really matter what racquet he is using or you for that matter.