I watched some of Tony Gunawan's old videos and found that when he serves, he grips his racket differently from what i was taught ie use a short thumb grip for backhand serves in doubles.
if it works for him i guess. i doubt it's vastly different to the normal grip. probably just a slight variation after years of practice and experimentation
Couple of pics.. ...(courtesy during one of his exhibitions, in this thread:http://www.badmintoncentral.com/vb/showthread.php?p=336877);) As far as i can see, from the look of both pics, his grip looks usual (short thumb grip). Perhaps it's the way/angle he holds the racket & handle. kwun, do you notice anything different, in terms of his grip??..
Looks ok to me except he chokes up the handle quite a bit. Not a bad thing to do. No disadvantage in power (as it's a short serve) and more control.
Looks pretty standard to me: a short thumb grip. Or maybe he's moved towards a bevel grip; it's hard to be sure from those photos. One purpose of a bevel grip is to give fine control for under-cutting the straight low serve. If you get the under-cutting (slicing) exactly right, then your low serves can become ludicrously difficult to attack -- but it's such a hard skill to get consistent. Having said that, you can still make use of more modest under-cutting, without such a big risk.
hmm....based on the photo, imho, there's nothing i could think of that Mr. Gunawan is doing something different than the ordinary or rather standard backhand grip serve? maybe the "ts" sees something we don't?
Tony's grip looks normal. But what always amused me was how he holds the bird almost perpendicular to the string bed. If I try that, the bird goes straight into the net. I hold a feather tip and let the bird hang loose, almost parallel to the string bed before I serve. Tony holds the feathers' *spine* far more inwards and much firmer.
The purpose of this is to make the serve flatter. This is something that Lee Jae Bok teaches, and I think it's a useful coaching point. If you hold the shuttle pointing straight downwards instead, then your serve is more likely to be loopy and "pop up" for easy pickings at the net. Having said that, it's possible to adapt to either extreme and your method is by no means wrong. As long as the result is good, it doesn't really matter how you hold the shuttle.
im curious, does he make contact with the birdie on the racket.. near the throat leaning towards on side? or is it just his placement pre-serve? that would be very unusual.. especially using a part thats near the frame..
Perhaps.. ..the right person to answer/clarify/explain/expound Tony's service grip is.............................................................Tony, himself (i know Tony visits BC or maybe has a BC acct.; is that correct, kwun??)..
Not really; this is quite common. The main advantage is that it keeps your fingers out the way, allowing you to release the shuttle at the last moment without fear of hitting your hand. For a flick serve the release would be momentarily earlier, giving the shuttle time to fall closer to the sweetspot and to angle itself pointing downwards.
It also makes the shuttle go faster (at least to me). Because the trajectory is flatter at the beginning, it is much easy to make sure the shuttle is at its peak when it crosses the net and therefore going downwards once past the net.
This (Tony's) shortened grip with the cork perpendicular to the string bed is preferred because it is more versatile. Because the cork is hit square it leaves the stringbed faster than the second method. Coupled with its faster shuttle recovery, it also dips at or near the net instead of going flat, thus making it more difficult to attack. It is also the only foolproof way for the man to serve in MX because of the longer distance. It is also much easier to do a flick effortlessly with this style. Serving with the shuttle angular to the stringbed (serving with the shuttle parallel to the stringbed may be illegal as the feathers and the cork will strike the stringbed at the same time) is a variation that is best used in doubles and not MX. This serve is not as deceptive or as effortless as the above serve if you do a flick serve, because an angular shot is not as efficient as one hit square. It is quite useless in MX for the man.
