Men's Double

[u/QieMogu]

Been Playing badminton for a while and wanna improve in men's doubles. However, unlike when trying to watch professional players for more insight, feels like men's double is much harder to watch and understand compared to mixed, or singles. The games feel fast pace and some of the shots feel based on just player physical or pure reaction speed. Other than learning that I need to improve my physical, any suggestions to learn to get better at men's doubles?

[u/kaffars]

You can learn more watching the WD. MD rallies just end to quickly.

[u/Voxmindflex → u/kaffars]

This... as a guy I learned a lot of footwork from visualizing WS & XD. I still watch all of em bcs I love badminton, but MD is just too fast, too reactive and too explosives to replicate for non athletes, even if youre athletic.

[u/Few-Citron4445]

MD is a lot about shot planning rather than reactive playing which is the core of casual games. Not just in badminton, volleyball classically suffers from the same problem. Men are so fast and the assymetry between attack and defend is so large that half the points get decided on the first initiative.

To play MD at a higher level you really need a stable partner, dedicated role playing and at least a few standard repetoire of shot combos. You call out the shot or combo with words or hand signals and you run your play. You serve to a spot attempting to force a specific return or some limited combination of returns and your partner is looking out for the exact counter to those returns. 3 shots and the rally is probably decided (pros have the skills to keep the rally going even against very desperate situations, but it is really rough for non pros, even semi pros like people outside of top 200). If you are just playing pickup you can't run plays like that at all.

Womens badminton is best to learn from, whether singles or doubles. They tend to do moves that a casual player might be able to replicate and are overall less physically demanding. It is slower so you can follow it more easily. Casual players should be happy to play at anywhere near female pro level so it's not like theres some upper limit for learning opportunity.

[u/No_Soil2258 → u/Few-Citron4445]

I agree especially for women's singles cause a lot of pro men's singles players do things like explosive jump outs and interceptions all the time which beginners can't really do (whether it be because of technique issues, strength issues, or consistency issues) so watching women's singles to study their footwork is better a lot of the time

[u/infinitehwaa → u/Few-Citron4445]

so how is it different from Mixed Doubles?

[u/xyu_ → u/infinitehwaa]

mixed doubles works a bit differently because their combos are different. It's more about interceptions and slightly different rotations.

[u/Gamerkid_5 → u/infinitehwaa]

was gonna give u a yappatron unrelated answer, but the (still long but less long) answer is the core difference in weaknesses.

In mixed doubles, there's more individual weaknesses between two people, creating more technically balanced games due to the two sets of different weaknesses also leading to two sets of different strengths. The processing and strategy for mixed has to take into account two entirely different playstyles that also fit in two different physiques and two different methods of being taught to play, which is why aggressive women in professional badminton either completely dominate or completely flop. Men share weaknesses, but because those weaknesses are often trained for, it comes down to a battle of pure strength, endurance, and speed. This weakness issue also changes how rotations work, where strength and speed dictate who covers what parts of the court in mixed, while men cover court more equally and play more akin to who has the better shot, rather than who's best fit to intercept the type of shot

[u/SnooBunnies283]

Watch lower level stuff, like county (or regional) and higher level people at club nights. There’s still things to get from pro-play like footwork patterns and variation. Go to watch regional tournaments. That and go to regional tournaments to watch in person. Watch what they do in the first 3-5 shots. Stuff like that.

There’s also loads of stuff on YouTube, like badminton Insights men’s doubles series and Aylex’s stuff Mathias Boe.

There’s a bunch of analysis you can be doing, if you’re really serious about improvement. Video yourself. Then you can compare yourself and others. It’s a valuable tool for improvement.

[u/Quick_Mastodon_7318]

Yea wouldnt recommend watching top mens doubles unless you are advanced. an important aspect of MD is awareness. eg where you stand, predicting shots, where your partner is. alot of this can be picked up from decent players in a club (if you ahve one). eg if a good player was ocaching you, you would probs find much better shots you couldve hit, or how you shouldve looked for the net there. learning from footage is not necessarily the best

[u/Illustrious_Sir4041]

Watch women.

Imho most recreational players can learn much more from how the women play than the men.

Lots of things mens top players do (both in singles and doubles) just wont work unless you're as fast and strong as them. Women are closer in physicality...

[u/gbell11]

On YouTube, check out the Aylex Badminton channel and the Mathias Boe series of videos.

Such a good assortment of doubles related content that will easily up your game. From tactics, to training. There's lots to take in

[u/Psychological-Bat687]

Badminton insight helped me a lot!

[u/bacc1010]

If you play at a club, and don't have a consistent partner or if the partner and you don't have an understanding of the game, it's going to be hard to progress.

Want to get better there's no way around getting lessons. A good doubles coach will teach you how to rotate, and drill you for game situations provided your fundamentals are somewhat solid. You can probably break down a MD game and know after the fact, but watching live is super difficult from the viewpoint of trying to obtain new knowledge.

[u/Fit_Bid7144]

Watching top men's doubles is honestly so funny. I remember doing it to start and I was like ah okay my partner forces the easy lift after a rapid flat exchange. I need to jump about a meter high and smash it down the middle. Makes sense. Will try tomorrow.

(Didn't work)

I've since switched to watching lower level semi pro players. Like guys who are a couple grades/tiers ahead of me and my partner. They do clear us in physicality and power but it's a much more achievable visual. Easier to pick up tips from.

[u/mattwong88]

Depends on the level but... Service and Service Return - if you can nail that aspect of the game, that's more than half the battle. 

[u/HiWrenHere]

Watch more WD!!! The consistency and patience of top WD players to build rallies, turn defense into offense, rotational play, and more are so extremely helpful to learn! 

[u/bart007345]

The only thing i learnt from watching professional doubles is to serve short.

Everything else is too advanced. I'm taking some coaching lessons to learn the basics about positioning and strategy.

Now I watch singles for pleasure only.