I wonder how high one can clear or serve? With today's more attacking game the very high clear and serve, the latter now only used in women singles, are seldom used. As a result I suspect today's players cannot reach the heights of the players of the past in the very high serves and clears. The great Eddy Choong was famous for his extreme high clears, reaching 40 feet high! Not only were they very high, they were also of very good length. I tried the high serve recently and found out that I could serve no more than 27 feet high (the ceiling was 27.5 feet high). My very high clears that can reach the backline are even lower at about 25 feet. If you can clear very high and to a good length to the backline, you can actually tire out your opponent during a warmup knock-up with him. I use this very high clear knock-up with some players and they now avoid having any warming up knock-ups with me now, complaining that I was playing the actual game instead of having a knock-up.
Interesting tactics to begin with. My clears aren't that high enough to touch the ceiling, but they are powerful enough to put my opponents out of balance. If I clear at full-power, they can go up to around 1.5m away from the baseline ( from the baseline of my side ). My high serves do sometimes touch the ceiling and the shuttle would sometimes get stuck up there, and if it falls down, it'd be a fault to me; so I tend to use short serves or flick serves alot.
When Hafz won the AE in 2003 against CH, he used very high clears against him.......he knew he couldn't play faster than him, so he hit very high clears to make him win the point. Often players use higher clear as they tire, as it pushes the opponent right to the rear of the court and upsets the rhythm of the opponents footwork. Not as often as is the past though...I wouldn't say the high serve is so much dead either, some players still use the high serve.
