I really need to work on my doubles game...

Your partner plays the front and you play the back. You attack everything that your partner can't finish at the net.

 

1. Doubles is attacking and aggressive play. That does NOT mean, you always hit at fast pace! Watch Lee Yong Dae play: He can play really fast drives and good smashes, but if you closely have a look at his matches, he plays a lot of slow paced shots! Slow pace at the net, a lot of slow pushing, cut dropshots... Variation of pace is crucial. It's pretty dumb to play fast all the time, I love these opponents...;-)

2. Make a video of your game and post it in the video thread. There will probably be some good comments by regular posters/reviewers like j4ckie, myself and some others.

 

First of all, I'm not trying to tell you off. Just hopefully some helpful/friendly advice from someone who has played a lot of doubles

One of the most important things about doubles is partnership. You've already described one problem that two players can have with their partnership: a difference in speed.

Sometimes, I play with my dad's group. Most of them are in their 50s and 60s. I'm in my 20s and I think I can safely say that I am 2 or 3 levels faster than they are (not trying to brag here). If I play at my usual speed I find that my partner often has problems keeping up with me. I might be dashing all around the court, but sooner or later we'll get into a rally where our opponents have gotten the upper hand and I play a fast attacking shot out of desperation and they simply block it to the front of the court or flick it over my partner's head. Whose fault is this? Well...my partner is not capable of playing at a faster speed because well...he's just not that fast, so I don't think it is his fault. However, I am capable of playing at a slower speed and I should do so.

In other words, you need to figure out what speed/style to play at in order to make you and your partner the most effective partnership.

I suppose you could argue that it's your partner's fault for not being fast enough, but you work on that in training. It's too late to do anything about that in a match.

Sorry, I know that it doesn't answer your question regarding positioning specifically but I thought it might be helpful.

 

I relate to you almost 100%. I play really fast and aggressive games as well with smashes and drives and service attacks. However, my partners usually have hard time keeping up and doesn't really take advantage of my aggressive plays and plays defensively.

For me, I come to realize that if you and your partner don't match each other, then you have to adjust your playing style to balance with your partner. Like if your partner likes to play a slow and tactical game, then you have to sort of take that pace as well...

Let me know what you think. I'm glad I share something similar to you.. I'm looking for answers as well. It really frustrates me when my partner can't keep up and I'm wasting so much energy on the court. Then when we lose, I end up thinking it is my fault or lack of game awareness or something.

 

Great tips and insights. Even though I'm not the OP of this thread, but I have a similar problem as well. I like to play at one pace (aggressive and fast). Should we really be mixing up our pace? When do we speed up? When do we slow down? Thanks!

 

Even though I'm not the OP, I share a similar problem and your response has really helped me. How do you find that balance in pace between you and your partner so that you both can have the most effective partnership? Could there be any questions you can ask your partner so that you both agree on a pace? or is it really up to you the 'faster and more most likely more capable player' to figure out and just find your own way to adjust to your partner's pace?

 

I think your perception is a bit weird:
It's not your partners "fault".

Often times, the correct shot is not a fast shot!
So if you do a fast shot in such a situation, it completely your fault, because you made the wrong decision and put your partner in a position where he looks bad.

In other words: Even if your partner is as fast or even faster than you, it may still be a bad idea in certain situations to play fast.

 

A very simple tactic is going 2 and 1. Do 2 things similar, and then change the pace on the next shot. 2 smashes then a drop, 2 drops then a smash, etc. Of course if you do this the whole match, a smart opponent will read it, so don't do it all the time.

If you want an example of how effective varying the pace is, watch some of the older LYD (or maybe even some of the newer ones) videos. Gillian Clark always comments on how the Koreans are so set into their defensive position that they're vulnerable to a drop. The more recent matches don't have this as much though, because the Koreans noticed and just got very fit (and very, very, good at retrieving) to make up for standing so far back.

 

Glad I could help


I personally don't usually ask my partner how fast they want me to play. I think I figure it out instinctively/unconsciously by either watching them play before our match or by figuring it out during the match.


I have had one of my mixed doubles partners say to me that I shouldn't play too fast because she wouldn't be able to cover me if I played too fast.


So, talking it out with your partner before the match could be a good idea; provided you think your partner's ego can handle being called "slow" . Or, perhaps, you can just ask "what kind of style or speed do you prefer/want to play?"


Here's what I think goes on in my head before I play a fast attacking shot (like a smash):
- where's my partner?
- where am I?
- what sort of shot can I play from here?
- if I play an attacking shot now, will my partner be able to recover in time to cover me if they get it back?
- if not, will I be able to recover in time to cover my own ass?


It's all about how well you can recover as a pair. Of course, factors like how good my opponents are come into play. If I can win the rally in one smash then I may as well do that, but, if I can't...then I have to consider the points above. If neither of us can recover in time, then perhaps I should play a recovery shot like a drop or a high clear to get us both out of trouble.


Now, this is where positioning comes into play. However, it's not so much figuring out what positions you should put yourselves into, because in general doubles positioning is fairly simple (when you are attacking it's 1-front 1-back, when you are defending it's side-by-side). In my opinion, it's more about: how do I get myself into an attacking position? This is much more difficult to figure out. Lee Yong Dae, Hendra Setiawan, and Cai Yun are all awesome at this. They have a great awareness of where they are, where their partner is, and where their opponents are.

 

Oh I see. Thanks so much! And the simple tip! I will check up more videos on double games and try to pay attention to the pacing.

 

Thanks so much! I will apply your suggestions to future games. I will work on court awareness as well (where I am where my partner is and if I attack will my partner be able to get it). Thanks a bunch and especially OP for opening this post!

 

Doubles is all about team work.

You need to be able to "sense" and know where your partner is and what he/she is doing at all times. That's the first thing you need to have to grasp the game of doubles.

No matter how good u are at singles. If you don't have any bonding or basic communication with your partner then you may lose to less skillful players, but with better teamwork and doubles experience.


For me, there's no rule to how you rotate or what-not, it's very open to where you move in doubles and never set on stone. As long as you can cover your partner well and set-up for him/her and vice-versa then you can play basic doubles.

If you play like a singles player and only think about yourself, then you'll only end up losing points when your opponent feeds off your attacks and play to your gaps. So setting up (net and moving forward) and getting the attack early (drive and smash) is both very important.

 

It’s refreshing to hear someone thinking about a problem that I was thinking about in my younger years. I, like you, was a very hard hitting, fast, aggressive player when I was younger. I smashed at almost every opportunity and very rarely varied my pace. It won me a lot of games and matches, but it was quite demanding physically to sustain that style of play particularly as you get older and probably unnecessary.

As I moved to play at different clubs and at different levels, it became apparent that although a hard smash was still a good weapon to have in your arsenal, power alone is useless. Good players were able to lift it with ease and I began to question what was wrong with my smash. It soon dawned on me that although I knew where to smash to make it difficult for the opponents to return well, I was simply not precise enough and was too prescriptive in placement.

I practiced more on my accuracy, hitting to the racquet hip, forearm (if defender commits to a 100% BH grip), down the line and channel attacking in the centre and realised that I could sacrifice pace for a bit more accuracy. Other positions such as high chest, racquet shoulder (if opponent kept low) were also good. This helped a lot. But it wasn’t enough.

Against some very good defenders, I needed to do more.

People often talk about varying the pace, but I wanted to know what this actually meant and why it is necessary. I studied and experimented with it in a bit more detail, talking to various people and realised that it is not just simply about mixing smashes with drops but also varying the pace, angle and position of the actual drops and smashes themselves - to create the errors and not letting your opponent get comfortable.

This is because if someone is heavily committed in anticipation to a particular shot, by repeatedly changing that meant not only do they need to change their position, they need to change their grip, react to something unexpected but also reduces their available options and quality of their returns. Those who followed Pete Sampras in his day probably knew that he did this a lot in tennis, every shot he played was different from the previous one and eventually it created openings.

But to do this, I needed to think more about where to attack and think faster.

For example. I used to play against a very strong defender he was short, agile and had a very strong wrist. Initially, I got in the mindset of challenging myself to beat him at his own game – by smashing as hard as I could at him and try get through that strong defence. I soon learnt that this was stupid. Not only was I tiring myself out, it did little damage and I lost all too many points and games doing this.

Giving him the usual mixture of hard smashes and drops had little effect on him. But I noticed that whilst he had a very strong wrist, he was heavily committed to a BH grip so I began to experiment with varying the pace of my shots on his forehand to erode his consistency. I tested a slightly slower sliced half smash to his forehand to create a steep angle into the tramlines and saw that he played this with his BH on his FH side and knew he didn’t have time to change grip – or chose not to. He returned it but had to generate his own pace and as a result could only manage a half court lift which I put away.

I also varied the height of my smash, this time to his forehand shoulder. This often produced a weak return which my partner could finish.

Another effective shot was the disguised drop which I mixed up with some smashes. Disguising the drop as a smash (ala Jung Jae Sung) but varying the trajectory can be very effective. Drops are generally played fast in doubles and end up being close to the service line. But by disguising the drop and playing a tighter but higher and slower (sliced) drop occasionally is very effective. As your opponent reacts a fraction slower due to the deception, it part compensates for the higher trajectory and longer “air” time that your sliced steep drop needs. However you need to be aware of your opponents position before you play this.

Someone mentioned above that your partner plays a big role in a successful attack. In high intermediate/advanced badminton, rear court smashes rarely produce winners (unless your name is FHF) and is more a tool to force a weaker shot from your opponent. If your partner at the net cannot intercept easy returns, your odds of winning the points quickly diminishes. But as you cannot always choose your partners, and I guess this thread is about you, the best advice I can suggest is to play some mixed doubles against good mixed doubles opponents. You soon develop another side of your game. I learnt a lot from playing mixed, it helped me immensely, particularly with stamina, understanding, positioning and speed which I could apply to MD.

Above is just one aspect I’ve picked up on from a hard hitting aggressive player point of view, but clearly there are others too.

 

^^ Agree 9999% for higher level doubles

I offered the simple tactic over varying smash/drop because that's the foot in the door about thinking about pacing tactics. As you've said, there are other factors you can vary to throw your opponent off balance (angle, placement on body, placement on court).

I think another key point you brought up is analyzing your opponent. If you're a club player who regularly sees your opponent, it's easier to learn where the weakness are. In a tournament situation, you might come in with no info at all before your match. In such a situation you should probably just start with a general effective strategy (aim between partners, vary pace) and then alter it as you notice holes in your opponents defense.

Doubles is about helping out your partner wherever you can. The front player should be looking for opportunities to set up the rear player (tight drop to force lift, interception to force lift), while the rear player should look for ways to set up the front player for a kill. If you ever watch amateur mixed matches where one team tries to play more doubles style than mixed style, you'll notice that play mixed style (more permanent front-back tactics) gives that pair more control over the rallies.