Hello, me and my doubles partner recorded a fun little singles match (11 point match) and recorded it. Could you comment on where we need to improve on and where we are doing good at? I'm the person with the green/grey shirt and the opponent is my doubles partner.
Your hitting technique looks sound but there is no urgency at all to your movement. You seem to move very slowly at all times with no split step and very little power transfer from your legs. Your lack of split step just makes you seem unprepared for most shots coming your way, especially any side smashes. That being said I think you both ought to work on defense. Neither of you seemed prepared with a crosscourt hit and often your returns would put you in a precarious position, although your partner was much worse at this than you
Is the split step the small bounce you do before moving around the court to give you faster footwork to the shuttles or do I have this wrong..?
Yes that is the split step, the small bounce before moving. It takes many 100's hours of doing it on purpose before it becomes automatic for you. I think your overhead technique is solid, you have good length clears and can hit offensive shots if you're in good position. You have an okay understanding of the proper footwork needed to get to all the areas of the court. When you do lifts or net shots though, I've noticed that your shots are a quite sloppy. You take a huge swing for a lift and at some times in the video you either mishit or completely missed the shuttle. It's not wrong to take a big swing if you want to want to perform a very high lift to the back line, but you take a big swing on every shot on the backhand front court so it's very easy to tell if you want to lift or do a net shot. Best example, 2:30 in your video. You take a HUGE backhand swing with a lift that is not very high and is in the middle of the court, giving your opponent an easy smash kill. What MidCourt said earlier is spot on. Maybe it's because you're playing with a friend, but it looks like you're playing a casual friendly game, not a competitive singles match where both opponents are trying their hardest. Big things to pay attention to: 1) Keep your body position crouched lower, this will help you move quicker around the court. Sometimes you're standing straight when waiting for an opponent's shot. It's very hard to move fast or react fast if you're standing with legs straight. 2) Keep your racket up in case your opponent hits a drive at your body. There were a few times your opponent caught you off guard because your racket was at your knees and you could not return a fast drive. 3)Work on your lifts. This is a GREAT close up video of Peter Gade doing repeated lifts with great technique. You can see that his swing is very short and compact and still gets the shuttle to the back of the court (we can only assume, video doesn't show where the shuttle lands).
