Recently I've been playing a lot of doubles, and I've come to the conclusion, that my backhand low serve stinks! I can't seem to get it flat enough, so my opponents end up driving a good shot to the back of the court or some other sort of attacking shot. I've experimented with different style's of low service; such as: switching the angle of the head of the racket, holding the birdie differently, and changing my foot position. Advice, or video recs? thanks, Justin
PRACTICE..PRACTICE n PRACTICE. Do u know that competition doubles players do low serve DRILLS at every practice session until they can serve almost perfect low serves? One golden rule of doubles, if u have inconsistent low serves u can never play competitive doubles. You cannot even get a rally going because they'll slaughter yr 1st serve, or at least they'll push those loose serves into difficult positions for u and yr partner. On the other hand. You don't need a partner to practice low serves, u just need a court and 5tubes of used shuttlecocks. I am saying all these not to insult u but to MOTIVATE u to serve better.
Honestly, sautom88 is so right. Just go on a court by yourself and experiment until you find something that works consistently. This is one area of practice where you will start to see an improvement in minutes, not months.
Before you go drilling serves though, I'd recommend you record yourself serving somehow, and watching it. I notice people who have inconsistent serves tend to slice their serves. Slicing on the serve is great i you can control it, but if you have poor serve control to start with, you should try a more straightforward motion (no, or minimal slice). The serve is a small, controlled motion. Once you find a motion that you're comfortable with (you feel like you can control it), then drill it to death. I like Howard Bach's serve. It's a very small, controlled motion. Here's a video of him playing doubles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylLKNc6jvN4
I recorded myself practicing serves half a yr ago. Check out my thread on a few important pointers. All you need is a few solid hours of practice to get it right. http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php/132378-Video-Backhand-short-serve Some important points. The action is a fast but short push with a tad of supination with a crisp contact onto the bird with the cork aimed at the stringbed. I prefer fast push as this action is very similar to a flick action. The contact point on the stringbed is at the top of the racket, at 1-2 o'clock within the first few strings closest to the serving hand. I find this area has the least rebound and the best control and consistency of the shuttle angle, direction and distance. My aim is usually within a few inches of the racket shoulder and cheek, varying depending on whether the receiver biases to his forehand or backhand. The trajectory after crossing the net seems good and low, usually falling below tape level within a foot of the tape, so that looks not killable. [video=youtube_share;ROV4vJsehjo]http://youtu.be/ROV4vJsehjo[/video]
Practiced my serve today. Corrected some things that I was doing wrong. I actually feel fairly confident that I should have a good serve in the next month. Thanks!
Love your video visor. Going to the club tomorrow and I'm going to just serve and serve until I feel like I have control over my serve. I practiced abit yesterday, and I noticed I was slicing the bird, and I was also not holding the bird directly in front of my racket. The bird was slightly above my racket and was causing a lot of problems too. I'll to post a video in the next couple of days. Does anyone know the distance between the 2 service lines? Thanks, Justin
Slicing the bird during low doubles serves are no problem. In fact it may give one better control of the serves. I also often 'slice' a bit on my low serves n most of my friends thinks that my doubles low serve is more than decent, the shuttlecock goes down almost right away as it barely goes over the net tape and yet the serve is not short. If the serves are often short then slice a bit less, thus 'pushing' the shuttlecock a bit further without lifting it higher.
