How do you people feel about the tactical advantages or disadvantages of forehand serve vs the backhand serve? Do you use both kinds? Why do you choose one over the other? (Other than the obvious that forehand is a bit better for long serves) I myself tend to go for backhand serve in doubles and forehand in singles, rather routinely. But recently I watched a (taped) game where Peter Gade who normally serves long forehands suddenly kept doing short backhand serves. I guess he had his tactical reasons, as his opponent was a keen smasher... By the way, I read that the backhand serve is a "novelty" in badminton. Apparently it was introduced by Asian players in the 50's.
I use forehand and backhand in singles and doubles. I'm not sure what the tactical advantages but I like varieties.
Variety is good... it's the spice of life! I don't know where I got that from... I remember hearing it somewhere before... anyways... I use both serves, just to mix it up. Some times I'll even serve a longer serve with back hand... however, it's very ineffective for high serves... That's just best left to our good ole forehands.
Re: Variety is good... it's the spice of life! I use the forehand serve for singles and doubles, because when I first learned to serve I had better results with the forehand. Later on a coach told us that the forehand serve was more deceptive but was harder to control. He also looked at my serve and said it was OK. IMHO, accuracy is not hard to achieve. Just practice. People tell me they don't know where I'm going to serve, so maybe the forehand is deceptive. Sometimes in a singles game I like to do a short doubles-type serve or maybe a drive down the center line just to keep the receiver alert. Some people say that the backhand serve puts the receiver at a disadvantage if you are wearig a white shirt because he won't be able to see the shuttle as well. That seems a minor advantage if it's true. A bigger advantage to backhand is you can stand at the short service line, extend your arms toward the net, and the shuttle will start its flight at least 2 feet closer to the net. Of course, what really matters is acuracy, consistency, and keeping short serves low over the net with enough speed to give the receiver less time to decide what to do. If I could do those things all the time, plus serve a long, high singles bird that came straight down on the backline I'd be happy.
Indeed! Aren't you a risk taker! ... serving high long serve with back hand . I never tried that before and will try it with my social play. ;-) I love the forehand serve though - it is much more unpredictable than the backhand serve.
Re: Indeed! hehehe... Actually the trick, is to flick it up fast enough so your opponent doesn't have enough time to reach back for it. It's pretty effective to take opponents off guard. However, don't do it too often, because the opponent will eventually catch on... I personally use that sort of serve as an alternative to the 'drive' serve. Most people I know that use the 'drive' serve, serve illegally. By doing the backhand flick, I can't be called for serving illegally. Works really well.
Re: Indeed! hehehe... Actually the trick, is to flick it up fast enough so your opponent doesn't have enough time to reach back for it. It's pretty effective to take opponents off guard. However, don't do it too often, because the opponent will eventually catch on... I personally use that sort of serve as an alternative to the 'drive' serve. Most people I know that use the 'drive' serve, serve illegally. By doing the backhand flick, I can't be called for serving illegally. Works really well.
I do backhand serves in doubles and forhand in singles,too.If I would do backhand serves in singles, my opponent will easily find out that it will be always short ,cause i'm not able to flick it real high and long.And if he plays well and found out he'll often fake me. In doubles forehandservers can serve from the side (they stand at the T and serve a bit far from the body) , the bird seems to get out ,but in the end it in, you all know!? Time ago I used to do forehandserves in doubles, because I could better flick, but my style was illegal ,I think ,because of suddenly changing speed. We call "flick serves","swip serves" , don't you use this word?Never heard of flick before.(learning a lot things here ;-)) I really would like to know the story of backhandserves,too.Asians invents lot of funny things, don't they?Things like the slice services.
in doubles i always use the backhand serve, i either do it short if my opponent in not standing right at the front service line, but if he is waiting right at the line i tend to flick it. anyway my backhand short serve is low and sharp enough, so my friends cant smash it, of coz only occasionally if i make an error. in singles use the forehand serve, i do backswing on all serves but sometimes its the high 1 sometimes its the low serve juz for deception
how do you do a slice serve? i've seen ppl do it before but i can't seem to do it....i can do it like once in maybe 20 tries? they're really good if you can get them to work. and i mainly use forehand serves in Singles cuz it's easier to hit it high and far back....and i use backhand in doubles....i seem to be able to aim better usin backhand for some reason.....so i think dat it's basically what you can execute...there's no use serving a serve that smashes the other guy/girl up for a smash. So maybe you should just use what yer good with and try to stick with it and practice accuracy....
i serve forehand all the time, singles or doubles.my backhand serve is terrible. It is usually short. The flick serve is the backhand one ryt????? I can't really serve high now because I play mostly doubles, and a high serve isn't too suitable to my game.
Never heard of a "swipe" serve ever! That's interesting since it's been called "flick" serve ever since I started (long, long time ago)
My situation is similar - I can do forehand high serve pretty well, and not too bad for forehand short serve, but my backend server is very inconsistent. I had tried to improve my back hand serve (as I mainly play double and many people use back hand serve in double), but I finally give up as I find that I can also mislead my opponent with forehand serves alone. In fact, I find that some famous players also use only forehand serves. Of course, I would like to improve my back hand serve as well, but it won't be a high priority item on my list.
As far as getting a good backhand serve is concerned there`s a few things that will help you get a good serve 1. When you`re holding the shuttle point the cork towards you, don`t hold it vertically as it`s hard to hit the shuttle cleanly that way. Also by holding the shuttle with the cork towards you, when the shuttle leaves your racquet it travels on a very flat trajectory which is what you want so it just skims the net. 2. Try to use as little wrist movement as possible in the short backhand serve - keep the wrist locked and think more of the movement of your forearm. Using the wrist introduces too much room for error and as you`re only hitting the shuttle a short distance you don`t need much power. 3. You can also increase the difficulty of the serve for the receiver by slighly underhitting the shuttle - by this I mean instead of moving the racquet in a flat plane horizontally ( your forearm moves forward at 90degrees to the net) try moving the racquet from about 20degrees above the shuttle downwards in a straight line. This way you don`t hit the shuttle straight on but with a slight angle which means you have more room for error if you hit too hard, as the shuttle should stay on a flat trajectory and fly quicker into the receiver`s court. However you must resist the urge to use your wrist to get this slice effect - keep your wrist locked and just use your forearm. 4. Lastly is don`t hit the serve too quickly - give your self time to get prepared and then you decide when to play the serve. If you get into a "quick rhythm" way of serving it makes it easy for the receiver to anticipate when the shuttle is going to leave your racquet, and then all he has to worry about is the direction of the serve. Try to vary the time you wait until you play the serve to keep the receiver guessing. I guess the last point is more for advanced levels of play - you should try and get a good serve action first before you worry about changing your serve timing. P.S Point 3 also makes it easier to deceive when you do play a "flick" as the receiver is used to seeing your racquet move from above the shuttle to below - when you then use the wrist to make the flick it`s difficult to read the serve.
Flick serve Olli, in Swedish the word for flik serve is "svipp-serve", so I guess your confusion is language-related. It's the same thing. Which brings me to another language question: When you do a quick smash more or less with no arm movement, just a quick flick of the wrist above the head, it's called "stick-smash" in Swedish. Is there a specific word for this in English?
I like that point 3. I shall try it out! Is this why some International players have really good flick serves? Haven't noticed it before.
Re: Flick serve Excellent description of the backhand serve. In fact I see lot of people when teaching this serve forget to mention about the wrist locking. In my opinion this is crucial for having a good and consistent backhand serve. As for hitting underneath the shuttle (point 3) I noticed that Park Joo Bong and Kim Moon So do that and produces a 'tumble' on the shuttle: it rises and before crossing the net it seems that the cork suddenly points downwards. I believe this makes it more difficult for the receiver to attack their serve.
