When I am serving to one player (singles & doubles) his return is very aggressive. When I do a short serve he charges in front and pushes the shuttle fast and I find it difficult to return. When I do a long serve he has enough time to go back and return with a strong smash. I find it difficult to serve to this guy. Kindly let me know if you have encountered such aggressive players and what was the strategy adopted.
These players are usually highly advanced players. They're the toughest to play against. The only way is to practice your serves to make them perfect, low, flick or drive.
Second that. The only chance you have is to practise and improve precision of your serves. Coach Lee helped me a lot with optimizing my (short) serve with this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHmYdyM7O9Q&index=3&list=WL You can practise the short serve at home with ease. Just do 20-50 each day and you will see the difference. Advanced players will still attack each serve agressively, but with tighter and more precise serves you make it more difficult for them. And when it comes to long (flick-) serves, make sure that they are well desguised, meaning that the hitting action for short and flick serves must look the same best possible. If you managed to surprise you "rushing" oponent with a couple of good flick serves, he will most likely get a bit more cautious and will probably stand back some inches as he awaits the serve.
Have you tried flicking it? If he still kills the shots, your serves are not good enough or you just have to deal with his good returns.
In singles I manage to keep him quite by giving a long serve but in doubles he is very aggressive while returning. In doubles, when I do a flick serve it sometimes lands outside and thereby an easy point to the opponents. My only option in doubles is a low serve but he tries to kill it by charging aggressively. Do u guys give the shot serve to the forehand, in front or to the backhand of the opponent? Does that matter in such cases
Where you place your serve is very important. You cannot stop him rushing forwards, but you can severely limit him by where you place the shuttle. Every player is different, but try the following things: - Try aiming at his feet (or a couple of feet behind the service line) and hit the serve a little more firmly (quickly). This will disrupt his timing as he is expecting a slower trajectory serve nearer to the front line. - Aim at his racket shoulder, directly between forehand and backhand. - If he gets the shoulder one, then try slightly to the forehand or slightly to the backhand. See how he deals with those. - Then try slightly wider than each of those. Note: when I say slightly wider of his shoulder, I am talking about 5 or 10 cm wider - a very short distance! And how good is he at returning the wide low serve? Normally players who rush the net struggle against wide serves. Also remember - as the server, the fast push is not for you to return - it is your partners job. Make sure you serve then get out of the way by ducking low! Ultimately, it sounds like he has a good return. You can probably improve your serves, and it sounds like your flick serve is not very good. It needs to be improved. When you flick serve, where do you flick serve? The forehand is the best place against most players as it is the longest distance. However, it depends on his stance and where he stands.
If your flick serves land outside then guess what - go and practise! If you don't do flick serves at all it's the easiest thing in the world for your opponent to stand as close to the service line as possible and keep on rushing forward towards your short serves. There just no risk for him of getting caught by a surpised flick which would leave him stranded at the net. The same goes with where to target the short serves. You have to vary where you're aiming for and then see for yourself where he has the biggest problems (or where he is least dangerous). Try and aim for the small zone right between forehand and backhand. As he rushes forward there is at least a short moment when he needs to decide whether to take if with his fore- or backhand which could be enough to provoke a mistake or a weaker return. What also helps with some rushers is to play the short serve with a bit more speed so that it would land about 0.5 meters behind the service line. The shuttle will be approaching him faster than he expects it while he rushes forward which could also suprise him and lead into a weak return. If he can cope well with all of these variants well, you will simply have to accept that he is a pretty good player and focus on playing each of your serves as precisely as possible.
Wow, 2 almost identical posts also at the same time. Agree with both. Also try intentionally serving short by a few inches. If he's rushing severely, he won't be able to decide or stop in time.
Being metally in sync with my personal "BC master of coaching advice" on a Monday morning... wow, couldn't hardly get any better than this! Good point with intentionally serving short. That works pretty good against most rushers.
Lol. Brilliant. Serving short is an interesting option, but one I have never needed. No server has ever been able to deal well with my short serve, my flick serve and my drive serve. One of them always works well.
Short and simple advice. Do a low serve that doesn't go more than six inches above the net. When it crosses the net , make sure it is going downwards. Question: why is the OP (who is the server) trying to return a fast return of serve in doubles? He should be leaving it for the partner....
I agree with you. I think this is the most important question. I mentioned it in my post and it would be good to get an answer - what is the OPs partner doing?
The reasons why my partner is not able to take the return is that the opponent who receives the serve gives a aggressive return to my direction and I am forced to take the return which give very little space for my partner to react. Like other members have stated I need to practice more of short serve and mix my serves with occasional flick serves as well.
I'm starting to feel some sympathy for your opponent - the return you're describing is one of my personal favourites as well. For the server it's almost impossible to react quick enough to get it back properly (especially, if the return is aimed towards the whole chest/shoulder area) even if the shot is played only with mid-speed. And if the server leaves it to the partner, he can see the shuttle extremely late which makes it equally hard to hit a proper third shot. I noticed that there is also a psychological part in that shot that's pretty nasty. The serving team might get the feeling "Oh man, that shuttle was easily inside our reach and we messed up even that one!" but only if they don't recognize this as a strategy of course. But this tells me also, that there is some room for optimizations in the height and trajectory of your short serve. It's quite hard to hit that body-push-return with the shuttle being below the net tape since it looses a lot of its danger if it's hit in an only slight upward angle. So we are back to basic: Keep on practising your serve! And make sure that the shuttle cork is pointing towards you when you hit it. This will help to generally achieve a flatter trajectory in which the shuttle should be heading downwards right after crossing the net. This was a real eye-opener for me which had an immediate positive effect.
I would say 6 inches is too much imo. Against good "rushers" anything 5-6inches would be easy for them. I would say it needs to be no more than 3-4inches above the tape. There are three main things you can do to counteract the advantage the rusher has. 1. Serve better 2. Get a good partner who can return the push well. 3. Become a rusher yourself - to neutralise the advantage. There's a lot of advice on how to serve better already but a lot of focus seems to be on getting the correct height and trajectory. However it is equally important that the receiver cannot read your serve. One of the best serves you can do against rushers is actually an underarm serve. If done well, it is very deceptive - although not advisable in matches!
3-4"? The players at your club are generous. Doubles and singles are very different obviously, so here's a few pieces from my books: General service tips: - When serving forehand, hold the shuttle pointing downwards - When serving backhand, hold the shuttle pointing towards the racket - Keep your racket face more horizontal, lots of players have the racket pointing totally downwards, and this makes it hard to hit the serve flat enough over the tape - Make sure you're using the correct grip, especially for backhand serves - Try to keep your service motion reasonably fast. You will be told by lots of people to 'take your time', and while it's true you have time to consider your serve, so does your opponent. A long delay gets your opponent ready to pounce. Singles: - Unless you have a good flick serve, use a forehand serve. There is no necessity to use a backhand serve. - Watch your opponents backhand quality, if you notice they have a poor backhand, you can take advantage of this by aiming high serves to their backhand side (and this works on both sides of the court, one side you aim towards the centre line, the other side to the far corner). This won't really work against great players, but against normal players, you can confuse their shot choice. - Make sure you can vary the serve; if you can do a forehand low serve and a forehand high serve, you can hit everything in between. - Disguise your serve, the only difference between your forehand low serve and high serve should be the wrist action. Don't let them anticipate your serve easily. Doubles: - Useless you have an incredibly good short forehand serve, use a backhand serve. You don't need the extra distance on the flick because of the shorter service area, and it's generally a bit easier to control precisely from the backhand position. - Remember you have the extra width in doubles, you can serve to the outer lines; this works well with flicks. - A variation very few people seem to use anymore is the drive serve. Like the flick serve it's a great deterrent. The aim isn't necessarily to drive it at them, but rather down the centre line towards the back T. It's basically a lower angled flick serve. It can backfire, but it's a nice variation to have. - Watch where their feet are, the closer they are to the service line, the easier it is to catch them with one of variations. You'll probably notice they step back a pace or two afterwards.
Where does this receiver stand in general? Toeing the service line? Next to the center line? All these are important information you need to pick up before you decide on a serve. If your receiver stands farther from the service line, you don't really need to make your serve too tight. Conversely, if he's toeing the line, and you don't have any threatening flick serves, you need to improve on your low serves (also). Also, it sounds like your flick serves don't work (well). You need to have them functional, and minimize your arm movements to give him least amount of time/info. Finally, vary the timing of your serves to make it harder for the receiver to time his starting step. Minimize the arm/hand movement also. Do you have big/noticeable back swing when you low serve?
