I have trouble trying to defend smashes that are hit to the sides. Does anyone have any suggestion or tips to get these shots? Any advice is appreciated.
you're not on your own here. Its a basic tactic of badminton to create space to hit into, for if you smash to the sidelines and manage to get the shuttle alongside or behind the defender then the angle of their reply,statistically speaking, should be easier to cover, if it wasn't an outright winner, probability says your next shot will be unless the defender is very good. In what are you having trouble with. Do you manage to get the racquet on the smash at all? Or is your return too predictable?
I think its all about practice, i found these quite hard when i first came across them but i am finding them easier, you should throw up shuttles to ur partner & get them to smash to ur sides as practice starting off at a low speed and building up to normal smash speed. I found this helped improve my return. Hope this helps
Is this in singles? Here's an easy exercise that might help: Get a partner to stand just in front of the net on the same side as you (so his back is facing the net). Give him a bunch of shuttles, and get him to throw them to the sides at a quick pace. The usefulness of this exercise is that it forces you to use efficient footwork to get to the shuttle while under pressure. It doesn't train the actual contact with the bird all that well (the shuttle is usually moving slower than a smash), so when you get more advanced you might switch to having your partner drive those shuttles down instead.
