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Some of the best players in the world don’t actually move very fast, BUT they do have other qualities that still help them win a lot of matches!
Of course, it’s still beneficial if you can get physically faster as this will improve your game overall, but here are 5 ways that you can still win matches as a slower player:
Let’s now go through each of these in more detail!
One of the best examples of a player that can read the game is Hendra Setiawan – Indonesian men’s doubles badminton player and a legend of the game! He certainly isn’t one of the physically fastest players on the world tour, he even managed to win the 2019 All England when he was so injured that he was pretty much playing on one leg!
So how did he manage to win one of the biggest badminton tournaments with basically one leg?! And how is he so good despite being a lot slower than most other players?
Firstly, Setiawan is very good at knowing where the shuttle is going by reading his opponent’s body and racket positioning, and also having a great understanding of what shot his opponents are likely to play.
But what he also does very well is intentionally leave gaps in the court. He will hit certain shots to tempt his opponents to play into this seemingly open space, but he’s actually ready and waiting to move over as soon as his opponent hits it!
This is most effective for the net and mid court, and also when you’re playing doubles as you have your partner to cover you if the shuttle doesn’t go there! If you’re interested, we go into more detail about how to read the game in badminton here!
In badminton you should play shots to expose your opponent’s movement and gain an advantage from this. You can also play shots that stop your opponents exposing your slow movement.
For example, in doubles you can block and move forward to the net to leave the rear court for your hopefully faster partner! This is what Hendra Setiawan does very well in his partnership with Mohammad Ahsan!
You might have slow movement but you can still have a fast racket, so another way to avoid exposing your slow movement is to engage in a fast and flat rally. This often encourages your opponents to hit hard back at you. Just make sure you’re hitting good quality and accurate shots or it may not be as effective! And this links on the the next point…
We often see players lifting half court or to the middle and not making their opponents move at all.
Lifting more accurately will enable you to put your opponents under more pressure, making them take it later and therefore reduce the quality of shot they can play.
This isn’t just for your lifting! Improving the quality and accuracy of other shots such as your serves, return of serves, defence and attack will put your opponent under more pressure and also take some of the pressure off your slower movement!
Using deception effectively can put your opponent under a lot of pressure, as it keeps them guessing and not knowing where the shuttle is going. You can gain many quick points from using deceptive shots, and it feels pretty satisfying too!
As an example, here is a tutorial on Greg’s favourite deceptive shot:
You can also use deception when you’re taking the shuttle late – just make sure you don’t overdo it as your opponents could end up anticipating your shot!
If you do want to improve your game and your movement is the main issue, then it’s probably worth trying to improve that too! There are lots of practices that you can do for this, for example fast feet, or simple movement drills to increase your efficiency and speed.
We hope you’ve now learned some ways to utilise your strengths and win matches, even if your movement is slow! If you’d like to see more visual explanations of the points we’ve discussed above, you can check out our full YouTube video below!