Singles

Tactics in Singles

Tactics in singles involves two parts - general and specific (or strategic). For the second part, you need to have a good knowledge about the style of the opponent you are playing against.

General Tactics in Singles

Singles is not an attacking game for most players - You need to work hard to develop consistent attacking skills. Even if your style is already the all-round attack, it is essential that you are able to fall back on to the basic game against particular opponents

According to Roger Mills in his writing "Badminton Tactics" :

Away from opponent
Backhand is best - to your opponents, of course
Concentrate on errors
Depth more than width
Earliest shuttle always
Fastest recovery

Four styles of player in Singles

Most players can be categorized as one of the four types of players in singles: (1) Heavy attackers; (2) Fast attackers; (3) All-around defenders; and (4) the touch players. Knowing which type of player your opponent is and playing against him with the right strategy may be essential for winning. It is very common however that a particular opponent you are playing is sort of a combination of several types. For him, you will have some home work to do.

Heavy attackers - First you feel overwhelmed by his heavy smashes. He tries to hit smashes at every opportunity. The bright side is that he is slow most of the times and the chances are he is weak defender too. Your best chances against him are : hit low to give him no chance to smash

Serve low most of the times.
Play four-corner to move him all over and hope he can not keep up.
If you have to take his smashes, try to "clock" them. This means to time his rhythm and to release your own replies at the right moment.
Hit your strokes low, but high enough for any interceptions. This way the birdie flies around fast. Flickers or drives are the best. If you are confident with hairpin drops, use them with flickers and drives.
Be patient and wait to kill when he makes weak replies.

Fast Attackers - He is the most awful opponent you can get. Liem Swie King of Indonesia is the perfect example of this kind. The chances are he has all sorts of weapons against you - smashes, drops, drives and slices. The worest of all, he hits everything with speed. Your best chances against him: slow him down, draw him in to the net and hit through him

Concentrate on tight net play with a close front base for this may be your best chance.
Pin him down at the rare court around the central line. When you clear, clear it high. So do you sever. That will narrow the angles of his strokes.
Hit your own angled smashes at him for he may not be such a good defender.

All-around defender - Prepare to have a tough mental game. He is the one capable of returning almost everything from everywhere. As exhausted as it will always be, his play has the hallmark of silky footwork with precisely placed returns. Think of Han Jian of China, relentlessly he can run every bit of energy out of you - Liem Swie King was twice the victim of his. Your best chances against him: Powerful smashes, patience and deceptions.

Pin him down at the rare court around the central line. Push him all the way back to the rare court as much as you can.
Deceptions to hold him at times with deep corner flickers.
Patience is your best friend here.
Hit heavy smashes through him and expect to take his tough returns.

Touch player - Equipped with magic touch and deception, his game is fun to watch. He takes his base very close to the net so that he can take the shuttle early for the net play and deception. He does not do much in the rare court except to set up a net play. At the top (Prakash Padukone of India), an elegant murder of even the best in the world. Your best chances against him: Push him back often and play front-back.

Take your own base a little bit closer to the net to retrieve his net-hugging shots.
Hit down hard and deep at every chance.
Push him all the way back to the rare court with flickers over his head.
Deceptions of your own to hold him at times with deep corner lobs.
Making your own tight net shot to draw him in and pushing it back to off-foot him.

Before you play a game, it is nice to have several plans to move your opponents around. A rule of thomb is to speed up if your opponent seems to be slower, and to slow down if he is quicker. Keep playing the effective plan while throwing in some surprises in between for no plan will work if he can see through it.

At the Top

Power alone can hardly make a world class player today. Asian players have made their way to the top by speed. Behind all this are the physical fitness and stamina. Indonesians were criticized by their European counterparts for the harsh and seemingly intolerable training techniques. The Indonesian system has nevertheless been adopted by others to generate world best players. As a possible result of the training, the peak time for Asian players is relatively shorter for the physical demands of the games they play.

Mainstream badminton in men's singles in the world contests has since become a combination of speed, power and precision. Long gone are the old fashion deceptions and back-hand smashes, and the like. Modern coaching has made today's players perfect with "robotic" skills and efficiency. Every technique is built around speed. Round-the-head rear court plays replaced backhand shots. Modern deceptions take the form of consistent preparition steps until the very last moment. Early take seems to be the popular philosophy.

Players at the top today are very likely to demonstrate all kind of perfect techniques at plays. Don't think that a particular player is one type and only that. He is capable of playing any other types too. High precisions separate the top from the rest in a less obvious way. It is very important to maintain it under pressure. Points most times are only matter of inches.

Put yourself in the court against Liem Swie King of Indonesia, for example. It will illustrate some of the principles above.

A long and high serve to him is met with a powerful jump smash to the side line at your backhand - most likely you will become a dead duck.
A short serve at him is met earlier from his close front to drop at the corners of yours - forces you to lift the shuttle he needed or a net shot from you that he is ready to kill, or to flick over your head to the rare corners - you will be likely to make a weak return that he loves to kill.
Now his serve has arrived low that barely passed the tape and aimed at the T-joint. Knowing that you cannot lift high to his delight, you flick to backhand corner long. To your surprise, he is there early too with quick footwork - with a round-the-head smash most likely to put down the shuttle.
Now his serve has arrived high, left you the choices of smashing to his sidelines - an attacking block to the corner is returned to let you lift, of check smashing to the front corners to be met with a net-hugging shot that draws you in to lift high.

Unless you are a good defender like Han Jian, taking his smashes is as painful as you can get. Prakash found his way to play net shots and deceptions against him, but failed the second time around. It is however, wise to play a controlled net game against some one like him: Poul-Erik Hoyer Larsen of Denmark and Sun Jun of China both successfully used the same strategy this year (1995) against a similarly built Heryanto Arbi of Indonesia - current world number 1, in the All-England and Sudirman Cup, respectively (although Poul-Erik Hoyer Larsen lost to Arbi few month later in the World Championship).