backhand short serving

In regards to the service line during serving, as long as the feet are behind the service line, it is legal

 

To reduce the distance the shuttle has to travel over the net, a better server, especially in doubles, would serve with his racquet slightly more than one foot in front of the front service line. Only the server's feet are not allowed on the front service line or in front.

 

Its worth experimenting with different standing distances from net regarding the trajectory of the shuttle. For instance some receivers attack back hand serves better than forehand and vice versa. Ideally in a good serve we're looking for the shuttle to be on a downward line, dropping, upon leaving the net tape. ie it should peak at the tape and have enough distance to land in!

 

In doubles a forehand serve takes a longer path, hence the serve is flatter and is easier to attack. The backhand short serve is at least a foot shorter and falls steeper and faster, making it impossible to attack if the serve is ideal. You can actually test this theory out by getting a good server to serve and an aggressive receiver to attack every such service-he will get nowhere.
As a matter of fact, one of the doubles training routine for top level doubles players is learn how to perfect the doubles serve for a solid one week.

 

Note that many professional doubles players do not stand right at the front when serving (they back off just a small distance). Only the taller ones stand right on the line.

Moving the contact point closer to the net has the advantage of giving the receiver less time to react. However, it also makes it more difficult to ensure the shuttle begins to drop immediately after passing the net.

When the contact point is farther away from the net, the shuttle will be travelling downwards as it passes the net. The flatness of this trajectory is actually an advantage.

So both things are desirable: a contact point close to the net, and a flatter trajectory where the shuttle does not continue to rise once it has passed the net. But they affect each other: if you make the contact point too close, you will not be able to keep the trajectory flat.

For an extreme example, consider a short player who stands right at the front, and leans forwards for a contact point as close as possible to the net. His serve will inevitably "pop up" as it passes the net, presenting an easy opportunity to attack.

This player would be better off not leaning forward, and even stepping slightly back from the net. This is a compromise: you try to find a balance between those two desirable traits.

It is possible to tip this balance in your favour by adding a slicing action to your low serves. Slicing underneath the shuttle is particularly effective, and can cause it to decelerate more sharply when passing the net. When the slice is perfect, you can create a faster low serve that swerves viciously downwards as it passes the net.

Unfortunately, adding this slicing action makes the serve much more difficult. The more slice you try, the harder it is to make your serve consistent. If you're going for the ultimate sliced serve, then you're likely to make a great many errors on service (in the net, short, or way too high). So I suggest introducing a modest undercutting movement into your low serves.

 

Xiao Jie demonstrates this very action in one of the Complete Badminton Training videos, to my great surprise - I have NEVER seen a doubles pro use that action; in my experience they always hold the shuttle at right angles to the racket face and push straight through (which is the action I adopted after seeing Lee Jae Bok propound it).

With regard to foot placement I agree with Gollum: it's only advantageous for a tall player to reach very far over the service line; if a shorter player tries it their serve will travel upwards more steeply and any looseness at the net will cause it to pop up higher. I am exactly six feet tall and I find it best to stand twelve inches behind the service line and serve from slightly in front of me (I've been told I serve exactly like Fu Haifeng, if that helps).

 

In the doubles serve standing 12" behind the front service line was what was thought to be good in the old days because it delivered a flatter serve.
Today, the shortest serve is from the very front of the front service line, the shorter the better. You can see this with the top Malaysian, Indonesian and Korean MDs. Just look at Tan Boon Heon, who seems to lean forward when serving.
Also, it may appear that a doubles backhand serve that skimps the net is ideal, but such a flat serve can be easily attacked by a fast push to the back or into the opponents. The ideal serve must rise up to about half to one inch over the net and it then must drop as it passes the net. This is the modern doubles serve. It cannot be attacked because hitting it down or flat can only be done with the racquet over the net, which is a fault.
The real way to find out the merits of the flat and net skimming serve vs the new steeper rise/equally steep drop serve is to test it out on the court. Or one can spend a week with the Pioneer Sports Academy in Malaysia learning this modern doubles serve, but at a cost.

 

If you look very closely at their serves, you will see that some doubles pros use an undercutting action.

It's not at all obvious, and you can see it best with a slow-motion replay.

If you want that serve, at least one of three conditions must be satisfied:

• You use a slicing action.
• You step back from the service line.
• You are eight feet tall.

I don't believe a serve exists that "cannot be attacked".

 

I suggest you watch how the top men doubles pair of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Korea serve. They use a much higher pecentage of the short serve to flick serve because of the consistently high quality of their short serve. I have yet to see one example of their short serves being attacked.
As a matter of fact the type of ideal serve I mentioned earlier can on many instances leave the receiver who stands say two or more feet behind the front service line incapable of reaching the shuttle before it lands on the floor, or reaching out too late and as a consequence delivering a poor service return. This would make some receivers come closer to the front service line, which is fine except for those who are weak against a flick serve.
The reason why an ideal backhand short serve cannot be attacked is because of the slower response time the receiver has. The time for the shuttle to travel from the server's racquet to the crest of the net is much shorter than the reaction time of the receiver to get his racquet even close to the shuttle at the net. Also the shuttle speed is faster before the net than after the net, which is unique characteristic of a feather shuttlecock.

 

I have watched an awful lot of those matches, and I have hardly ever seen an example where the low serve is not attacked.

Maybe you and I have different ideas of "attacking the low serve". I think of any non-lift shot as an attacking reply. Whether it actually gains the first attack will depend on the third shot, but at least it's a fighting attempt.

For example: a net shot is an attacking return of serve.

 

Let me put it this way: in the old days in doubles, a short flat serve that skims the net was what was considered to be ideal. In the modern doubles game the stock-in-trade serve is the short backhand serve that travels the shortest distance and is delivered in a rising trajectory in such a way that it drops more sharply at the crest of the net. A flat serve cannot, by the nature of its trajectory, drop sharply at the net. A flat serve looks good skimming the net but its "window" of response time it allows the receiver to attack opens it to instant attack. Such a typical serve is the so-called perfect forehand short serve, hence its disappearance from almost every top tournament today.