Singles Tactics

Singles isnt about keeping the shuttle flat. Youre describing a doubles approach. Play the shuttle high to the back, and slow drop shots. Make them move round the court. If they start to whack you off the back of the court then stop lifting to their forehand and play and lift drop game to their backhand.

Is this supposed to be the open tournaments in the UK?

 

Im in my last year of U17s this year. So are you supposed to be the bronze/silver/gold player in your box? My girlfriend's playing in one next weekend as well. She's at the top end of silver at the moment.

 

Well, now a day singles is changing and all tatics depends on who you ae playing against.
Playing to the back hand is never a bad idea-I guess no body has a back hand superior than forhand. Also attacking clears are a good option. I you use it wisely, that will push your oponents back and they may not be in a good position to play smash.

Have you read Gollum's Badmintonbible.com & Jake downey's winning badminton singles (Badders.com or badminton.tv) Both are very good.

 

so ld rules you are from scotland?

let me give you something to work on! whatever skills you are good at the moment, use it in this tournament.

you mentioned you have good defense, use it and when opportunity arises then you attack.

if you think that by keeping the shuttle low, you can control better, go ahead but keep in mind you have to keep up your speed in the front court. a fast cross net follow by a fast cross court smash/chop can get you points but it also wears you out very fast. i suggest you combine playing defensive and do the above when opportunities arises

 

I agree with you, LD rules!, I don't rate slow drops as a good shot to play too much in singles. You'll generally find that if you play one, your opponent will just get underneath it with a good spinning net shot and leave you in all kinds of trouble. Drop shots are good to use in singles but I would stick to faster drops and checked smashes. Slice drops are very useful as well from your forehand corner.

Lifts will give your opponent the chance to attack only if you play a high lift. In singles, when pulled to the net, it's generally a good idea to to play a lift with a flatter trajectory down the line to make your opponent have to cover a lot of court relatively quickly. I think you'll know what I mean from that explanation but if not, here are some diagrams to try and help. They aren't very good and in terms of the exact trajectory of the shuttle are almost certainly not that accurate but they should be good enough to give an idea of where the shots should go. Kudos to Kwun for producing the original 3D images and I hope you don't mind me using them for my diagrams - if there's any problem, I'll take them down ASAP.


Here is a comparison of the two different lift types. A flatter lift should always be hit away from the opponent to prevent it from being intercepted. You can go cross-court with it if your opponent hits a shot down the line but it's generally safer to use it down the line because this reduces the risk of it being intercepted (if you play it down the line, you shouldn't have to hit it over/past the opponent, it should pass them by at a safe distance). You shouldn't hit it too hard, just guide it in to the back corner. Being deceptive with this shot works well - make it look like a net shot to get your opponent poised to come in for it and then at the last moment, just use your wrist to guide the shuttle relatively flat to the back of the court. A high lift in singles should always be high and up the middle. If you hit it to the corners, your opponent has you at their mercy because they have a lot more angles to exploit. This should only be used in situations where you are very much on the defensive and there is no other obvious escape shot. Hitting it up the middle neutralises the angles and because it goes high, you have time to recover to a solid defensive position.


Let's take the flat lift and put it in to a game situation. Let's say the diagram above shows a singles game and let's say me and you are playing each other in a game of singles (I think you're left handed as well). The rally starts with me hitting a high serve, you respond to that with a fairly attacking clear to my forehand corner. I counter this with a cross-court forehand drop which can be seen marked by the dashed line on the diagram. After the kick and follow through of my drop shot, I charge the net, anticipating a net shot from you only to see you receive my drop shot and return it with a flat forehand lift which travels fairly quickly in to my backhand corner either for an outright winner or to leave me scrambling to get the shuttle back over.


The high lift is purely a defensive shot. I'll give this diagram a game situation as well. Once again, you and I are playing singles. This time, I have you in trouble and all you can do is hit a drop shot to the middle of the court - you were too late to the shuttle to hit a deep clear. I anticipate this drop shot and so, I am able to get there early and play a tight net shot. You lunge to return the net shot with a high lift. The shuttle goes high, deep and to the middle meaning that my upcoming smash's angle has been neutralised and you have time to recover and return the smash.

As for tactics in singles, I would suggest you try to move your opponent round as much as possible and vary the pace. It isn't such a bad thing if you find yourself on the defensive because it is much harder to sustain an attack in singles. When returning smashes, try to respond to them with flat drives or blocks to the net. Smashes take a relatively long time to recover in to the next shot so by making your opponent have to cover distance, you can force them to lift and hand the attack over to you.

Slice and reverse slice smashes can be an effective way to surprise your opponent if they are defending too deep in the court and/or cheat over to one side. They don't travel as fast as your flat smash but travel in bit of an arc and drop quicker. These can surprise your opponent, leaving them unable to return the shot or giving you a weak shot to finish off.

As has been posted already, attacking the backhand is very rarely a bad idea.

Watch some top level pro women's singles on YouTube and look at the movement and shot choices. Attacking doesn't have to be smashing, more just moving your opponent around the court, creating space for a winning shot later on. Watch the female pros playing singles as opposed to the men because the way they are able to play is more comparable to your level, and indeed most amateur players' levels, than watching male pros play singles.

Finally, sorry for the really long post and emphasis on lifts as opposed to solely on singles tactics, I just thought I'd demonstrate to you how the lift can be used as an attacking shot.

 

It isn't necessarily about tiring them out, it's to open the court up for easier winners. I know I keep referring to the pros when talking about singles tactics but if you think about it, the core of their singles games is using the court space to their advantage and moving their opponents around. Professional players are likely to be even fitter than the people you'll be playing - all of the pros I have hit with have been like machines, just relentless. Even when Chris let me try to attack, I never really felt in control because despite my best efforts, he was just able to block most of them back as if they were nothing. Note that this particular encounter with Chris that I am referring to was just a game of half court singles so there wasn't really much space to make him reach for the shuttle. I couldn't really smash a long way away from him and keep the shuttle in.

I would say that the absolute best response to a backhand (or indeed forehand) low serve is a flat push/drive to their far rear corner. It puts a lot of pressure on your opponent and should put you in a more offensive position than just a net shot. Of course, a lot of the time, especially in high level games you won't get much of a chance to really attack the serve so a net shot is a relatively good alternative. Likewise, a flatter lift in to the far corner can also be quite effective at applying pressure. It generally puts more pressure on your opponent's movement but is riskier than a net shot. This means that you should use it in moderation because if it's obvious you're going to play it, I think it's likely that your opponents will read it and either smash it through the floor or put you in a not-at-all favourable position.

The first serve that you return be it short or high is in my opinion, the single most important serve you will return in any given match (except maybe when you're receiving serve match point down or at 29-29, deciding point). If you really "mean" your first serve return and play it well then your opponent will think about that for the rest of the match. As you will know from being a serious player yourself, the serve is very much a confidence thing and if you take the server's confidence away, their serve usually goes with it. A prime example was a match I played last week. My opponent served first with a backhand short serve. I was able to hit what I suppose you would describe as a push in to their backhand corner for a clean winner. What is the significance of this little story you ask? Well, this guy didn't serve short to me again throughout that entire game. If you return serve well, you not only gain an upper hand in the rallies that you start by receiving but you can really get inside your opponents' heads with it.

 

Yeah, force them to the back corners off the shot serve if possible with a flat shot because they have the most distance to cover in a relatively short amount of time. They will probably give you a weak reply and open the court up (and of course, make them reconsider using the shot serve to you).

As for having confidence in your shots, I sometimes have a similar problem but the solution to yours at least would seem quite simple. I am a big believer in that the first shot you see is nearly always the right one. In that situation , I would probably have advised you to be brave and hit the kill. Of course, this wouldn't come off 100% of the time but if it was how you described, it should have been reasonably simple to put it away with a kill most of the time. If you're going to change your mind on a shot, there is always the risk that you "play both" and it's not often you see someone play both shots and the shuttle actually going in a decent position. Once you change your mind, definitely do not go back to trying the first shot, stick with the shot that you changed your mind to.