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Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Pressure movement or shot making pressure?

This question is asked often.

Pressure movement

Pressure movement is more of pulling an opponent out of his or her base position. In Singles, this can be done by hitting to the four corners to 'jerk' the opponent around. This is fundamentally to exploit a slight 'decision-making' mistake of the opponent when he or she is recovering back to base position. This can even be used to exploit the opponent's footwork...and stamina over a long match. This a bread and butter tactic in singles and rarely used in advanced doubles game. Other words, people often used is 'control'. This implies that one can control the opponent's movement in the court. The key is to make the opponent, move 'late' to the shuttle, while you reach the shuttle 'earlier', which means the initiave belongs to you. Once your opponent is late, you can do a deceptive holds/flicks, drops, unreturnable tumbles, outright kill or even clear winners. That's why coaches often tell their students to take the shuttle early and at the highest point...this puts your opponent under a lot of pressure.

Shot making pressure

This is a fundamental concept in high level badminton. The bread and butter of doubles is the attacking play, meaning hitting the shuttle downwards. As a good doubles pair work togetther in an attacking position, e.g. the front/back position the net person covers the net while the partner pumps in smashes and fast drops. By smashing and even driving, you put your opponents under shot making pressure. This means they must return the shot quickly and safely so that the you and your partner cannot kill the shot. For example, in the defensive stance, it's difficult to continuous lift smashes cleanly to the baseline or blocks (to surprise opposing net player). The defender is under tremendous shot making pressure and can easily make mistakes. As for drives, another important tool in doubles is to sieze the initiative by forcing opponents to lift the shuttle. The mishit of a fast drive usually end up at the net. The drive or a fast push (in this example) can also be use as a pressure movement shot by placing it fast and low to an unprotected corner.
GIFSoup
A slight mishit or a half-court lift can result from a well place drive or slower push. But basically a drive must be remembered as a shot to force opponent to lift the shuttle. GIFSoup

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