I have a badminton singles question for you gurus and what I think is the answer but I could be way off the track; I feel like my footwork is good and that my shots are okay, ofcourse I'm no pro and make errors but I'm getting more consistent. My issue is that against the better players I get wrong footed. I feel that physically I can keep up, but frustratingly I keep getting wrong footed and that burns my energy really quick. There's nothing more energy sapping than having to change direction when momentum is going one way and the shuttle the other way. I move forward and my opponent appears to play a drop, holds and flicks deep to my backhand. The opposite happens when moving left, he holds the shuttle and hits out of my reach to the right. Maybe some forum experts have some tips to combat this so I can win a few more points. Here's my theory so tell me if I'm wrong; I'm moving to early because I'm anticipating a shot that my brain says is going to happen. I guess if I'm unsure about the next shot I should wait until the shuttle is hit before committing. Make my next shot as difficult as possible for him/her to make an offensive/deceptive return and then anticipate when I'm on the offensive. When players can be deceptive like this I find it difficult to win points especially when they can do it consistently. I would make rather play any other kind of player but there has to be a sure footed way to approach these kind of players with more confidence. Good luck answering this one!!
Your theory is good. Movement in badminton is easy if you know where your opponent will hit the shuttle; but most of the time, you don't know this. Most of the time, you need to cover all four corners. You need to time the rhythm of your movements, so that it matches your opponent's rhythm. When your opponent is about to hit the shuttle, you must stop moving and perform a split drop. If you keep on moving instead, then you're not ready to change direction and your opponent can exploit this. Try to recover towards a central base position, where you can cover all the corners. ...but you'll never see a Nessie in the zoo.
Yep, center base and pre-stress it is then. I guess it's difficult here in oz. We rarely get to play against people who can exploit our movements like this and badminton is always so predictable. It gets so easy that I feel like I'm just playing in the backyard and can return most of their shots with my arms stretched out and that sucks. So on the odd chance you do meet someone at or above your own level you feel stupid when you get sucked in. I'm going to Indo for one month in September so hopefully I'll get plenty of practice against better players over there if I can find a club. By the way being 6"2 and a thin build is helpful if I do get wrong footed because most time I can still reach the shuttle but having to do that all the time breaks you down very quickly and it doesn't matter how fit you are it'll stuff you up. I guess if I wait like you say and do a pre-stress somewhere near center court my game will improve heaps. I'll test this theory out and see if I do better. This person beat me 21-5 the last time I played him and everytime he won a point he did it deceptively. Because he is a better player I new I needed to get to the shuttle as fast as possible and that probably made me loose out before I even started!! We Aussies have a lot to learn about badminton but if we put as much time and money into the sport as we do with Football (Aussie Rules) and swimming we'd be doing really well. I coach about 10 juniors here in Darwin at the moment and I'll try and incorporate what you just told me into some decent footwork drills.
Read the details in "React or anticipate/predict" and you will be less likely to be get wrong footed. And take Gollum's advice of "Try to recover towards a central base position, where you can cover all the corners."
