Learning how to serve in badminton is really important, and you need to have a few varieties of serves in your arsenal to win rallies. In this article, you’ll learn how to execute the perfect high serve in badminton.
You can do a pretty good job with a good-quality low serve. But, you don’t want to do it all the time. That’ll help your opponent to guess what’s coming and prepare for the return. So, in order to make life harder for your opponent, you need to vary your serves at times. Learning how to do a perfect high serve will be really helpful for that.
Let’s dive right in and learn how to execute the perfect high serve in badminton.
What Is A High Serve In Badminton?
A high serve is a serve in which you want the shuttle to land on the back end of your opponent’s court. The player who does the high serve stands in the front corner of the service court and serve the shuttle in a high, long, and diagonal manner so that it reaches the back end of the opposite court.
Take a look at the below pictures to understand how to execute a high serve in badminton.
Note that these pictures show you how to execute a high serve only in the singles format of the game. In doubles, there will be a service box at the back of the court, and there won’t be any side-boxes. So, you have to hit the shuttle just in front of that box in the corner. Take a look at the below picture to get a clear idea.
This service is most commonly used in the single’s format of badminton, especially in women’s singles. We can effectively use the high serve during the singles game to move the opponent to the back-end of the court, and thereby opening up his court.
In the doubles format of the game, players often use the low serve as it is more difficult to attack a low serve than any other serves. However, you can use a high serve occasionally to surprise your opponent and prevent him/her from expecting your low serve.
I hope you’ve understood what a high serve actually is in badminton. Now, let’s see the steps to execute a high serve correctly.
How To Do The Perfect High Serve?
Let’s see how you can do a high serve correctly.
- Come near the front corner of the service line (2-3 steps behind the line) and hold the shuttle with its head facing towards the ground
- Stand in a sideways manner so that the side of your body faces the net
- Let go the shuttle from your one hand and swing the racquet upwards with the other hand
- When you do this, your back leg will have to lift up naturally with the toes touching the ground
- Complete the follow through and come back in a position expecting the return
I hope you’ve understood the basic concepts. To make it more clear, watch the following video and understand the whole process.
Why Should You Learn The High Serve?
Learning how to execute different serves is really important in badminton. You can use different serves according to the game situation and opponents. If you have the perfect serves to send to the opponent, you can easily play a mind-game with the opponent and beat him/her in the rally.
A high serve is a great option to use, especially when you’re playing the singles game. As you might have seen in the above video, a high serve landing vertically can be pretty difficult to attack. Also, you can use a high serve occasionally in the doubles game.
If your high serve is not perfect, chances are the opponents will attack you, and you’ll end up losing valuable points. So, it’s better to do some practice and make your high serve as accurate as possible.
Now, let’s see how you can improve your high serve and make it perfect.
How To Improve Your High Serve?
We know that perfection in any shot comes with practice. If you want to make your high-serve perfect, you need to practice it a lot. Once you’ve done the practice, try to implement the serve in game situations.
Initially, you might not get the high serve right, and your opponent might smash it to your court. But, with time and patience, you’ll be able to improve this shot.
One tip I want to give you while doing the high serve is that try to hit this serve to the backhand corner of your opponent. Most people are weak with their backhand, and it will be pretty difficult for them to take the attack to you when you place the shuttle in their backhand area.
If your opponent is not so strong with hitting smashes from the rear end of the court, you can use the high serve to them very effectively. If your opponent is pretty strong with their smashes (mainly tall players), do not use the high serve often. Instead, use the low serve to them.
How To Return A High Serve?
You’ve learned how to do a high serve in badminton. But, it’s also important to discuss the other perspective. What if someone hits a perfect high serve to you, and you want to return it in the best way? Let’s see how you can return a high serve in badminton.
Obviously, if the opponent’s high serve is weak, you can take advantage of it and play an attacking shot. If the opponent serves a good-quality high serve, what you need to do is to get behind the shuttle as fast as possible.
Try to make the judgments very quickly and move according to the path of the shuttle and come behind it. Do not just move casually and waste valuable time. Move your body quickly and get behind the shuttle.
When you’ve come behind the shuttle, position yourself to play the shot you want. If you move quickly, you’ll get more time to settle yourself and hit the right shot.
Once you’ve hit the shot, complete the follow-through, and come back to the base position and get ready for the return from the opponent.
Final Thoughts
A high serve is really important to master, and you don’t want to hit a weak high serve to get smashed by your opponent. I hope this article was helpful to you in learning how to do a perfect high serve.
Now, if you want to learn how to execute the perfect low serve, you can check out this article. Apart from high serve and low serve, there are a couple of other serves in badminton that you can use to trick your opponent. If you want to learn more, check out this article on Different Types of Serves in Badminton.
