5 Basic Tips To Improve Your Net Play In Badminton Doubles

Featured Image: Ian Patterson

Net Play in badminton doubles is perhaps one of the more challenging parts of the game. Here are 5 tips which hopefully will help you to improve your front court game.

Court Positioning At The Net

The first tip is to pay attention to your court positioning when you’re at the front player at the net. Sometimes I see players playing too close to the net, then wondering why they can’t intercept anything! Remember, only your racket has to meet the shuttle as early as possible, not your whole body! Standing in such a position restricts your movement to only side to side along the net. Now imagine the speed of a defensive drive. There’s very little time between when the shuttle crosses the net and when you can hit that shuttle. This makes interceptions incredibly difficult from this position.

Another issue with this is that you have very little shot choice when you stand so close. In fact, you’re limited to basically hoping the shuttle bounces off your racket if you hold it up! Net shots would be very difficult as moving towards the shuttle laterally is awkward. Manoeuvring the racket is almost impossible!

Instead, you should be around the service line generally. There are times at which you might be closer. For example when you anticipate your opponent’s defensive shot back to the net. But generally being around the service line allows you enough time to read the situation, flight path of the shuttle and calculate your shot. It also allows you the space to move in any direction towards the net comfortably and manoeuvre your racket in such a way as to play the desired shot.

This is more advantageous not just for you, but your partner attacking in the rear court. You will be better able to force the opponents to lift the shuttle. Consequently, your partnership remains on the attack. This makes it much more likely you will win the rally.

Shadowing Your Partner

This is an important tip for the frontcourt player. If you don’t shadow the movement of the rear court player in the frontcourt, you might leave gaps on the court that the defensive pair can exploit.

Often the defending pair will move the rear court player side to side in the rear court, trying to force them off balance and weakening their attack. While the front player is isolated from the shuttle in this scenario, they should be shadowing their partner. If the shuttle is lifted cross-court from their current position, the rear court player has moved across the court to maintain the attack, and the frontcourt player should shadow this movement, moving across in the frontcourt.

The reason for this is that your partner’s smash and opponent’s subsequent reply is likely to be straight. Therefore you are putting yourself in the best position to receive the opponent’s defensive shot. This will enable you to better intercept the shuttle and play a shot to the benefit of yourself or your partner.

These movements are not extreme. for example, you wouldn’t stand right at the edge of the court because your partner is right in the corner of the rear court, unless you are absolutely convinced of the opponent’s reply. The net player will bais their position slightly to the left or right of the centre line according to which side their partner is attacking from.

Being too bias to one side opens up too much space for the opponents to play defensive shots into, therefore making you susceptible to a counter-attack. Likewise, if you don’t shadow your partner’s movement, the frontcourt becomes more available for the defensive straight block to the net.

Kill The Shuttle When You Can

This is perhaps the most frustrating thing I see on the court. The rear court player works tirelessly in the rear court to finally produce a winning opportunity for the frontcourt player. But, instead of playing what would surely be a winner, the net player plays a soft shot trying to be clever.

One of the more important attributes of the frontcourt player is knowing the right shot to play to benefit them or their partner. If you have the opportunity to kill the shuttle, this is always the default shot and taking these opportunities will certainly make you a more effective frontcourt player.

Don’t get me wrong, changing the pace in a rally is important, but it should be reserved for when the opponents are under significant pressure and even then it’s fairly rarely used. Look at the above video. The frontcourt player finishes the rally with authority because it’s pretty much a guaranteed winning shot. They could probably play a softer shot but why run the risk of the opponent scrambling the shuttle back into play and having to engineer that whole situation again? So certainly for amateur players, in order to be more effective at the front of the court, kill that shuttle!

Threaten The Net

This kind of circles back around to my first tip, just the other side of the coin! One of the reasons many players don’t feel comfortable in the frontcourt is that they never put themselves there. Instead of remaining kind of in the midcourt, or coming out from the frontcourt when they feel like, not when the rally dictates. This happens with most beginner players and quite a few club players.

Aside from this being a fundamental flaw in the strategic positioning of the attacking partnership, it also is not working as a team. If the frontcourt player wants to come out, they should help their partner by setting up attacking opportunities, therefore giving them more of an opportunity to move into the rear court. Working as a team this would be much more achievable.

Instead what you often get is one player moving into the path of the other and having to clear the shuttle. Or playing a net shot, then moving out to take the subsequent lift. The rear court player is already in a position to attack. So coming back causes confusion and opens up the frontcourt for your opponents to exploit.

If you’re never there, what’s to stop the opponent from simply blocking the shuttle to the net. By the time you reach it, you’ll be in no position to play a shot which keeps your partnership on the attack! So you’ll have to lift it.

Just by being there and being active and making your presence known. Just this is enough to make the opponents second guess playing back to the net. The opponents will be aware of your presence and would want to avoid any additional pressure applied by you as the front court player.

This is why at the professional level you see so many lifts to the rear court in defence. It’s because it’s easier to defend the smash than deal with an interception at the frontcourt. The threat of the attacking front court player is very real!

Play Meaningful Shots

Lastly, play meaningful shots! Like the above, when you can kill the shuttle, you should. If you can’t kill the shuttle you should play shots which facilitate your partner in maintaining your attack. There’s no point covering all the above points but then lifting the shuttle every other time you can’t kill the rally.

This doesn’t mean playing Sukamoljo like interceptions either! It means play net shots, pushes, anything to set your partner up. They, in turn, will hopefully set you up to play the easy kill!

The fast interceptions look spectacular but have a very high error rate. For one you might intercept successfully, you could make an error on three others. That’s a ratio which simply does not work in your favour. Focus on teamwork and you will be more successful as a partnership.

Net Play In Badminton Doubles – The Last Word

If you can start doing these four things, your effectiveness as a frontcourt player will improve, your partnership will improve and you’ll be a better all-around player having this in your repertoire.