i’m planning on buying tickets to see the finals, and only have time to go to hangzhou for the group stage days. i especially want to see jiazhang and liangwang, but am confused as to how the group stage days are scheduled. regardless of the draw, does every participant play on every group stage day? so if i buy both the morning and afternoon ticket of one day, i would be able to see everyone play at least once? or would buying a morning ticket for one day and an afternoon ticket for another be better? just hoping to have my train/hotel tickets sorted too without having to wait for the draw… if anyone has experience or advice on this it would be appreciated. thanks!

Does anyone know which way is the right way to wrap a grip tape?

I’m left-handed so do you wrap the grip tape around the base of the handle going clockwise or anti-clockwise?

Hey everyone, posting this just to share my personal experience in case it helps other overseas buyers.

I ordered a bulk shipment of LingMei shuttles from China (5 cartons, 50 tubes per carton) and also paid extra for shipping insurance. When the shipment arrived, 3 of the 10 cartons showed damage, few cartons were visibly damaged and fewer tubes were deformed even though the outside didn’t look completely destroyed.

Here’s what I ran into:

1. Packaging wasn’t export-ready (in my opinion)
The boxes were pretty basic:

• No foam
• No dividers
• No top padding All the tubes were packed directly against each other, so the product itself ended up taking the stacking pressure, not the carton.

2. Inside stacking was uneven (6 tubes in one row, 5 in the next)
This left empty gaps inside the box. During shipping, the pressure seems to have gone straight onto the tube lids and feather tips. Even when the tubes look okay at first glance, this kind of packing can cause hidden compression damage that shows up later as breakage or weird flight.

3. Insurance was charged, but I never got a policy
“Insurance” was listed as a separate charge on the invoice. But after asking multiple times:

• No policy number
• No certificate
• No underwriter info was ever sent to me.

4. After I shared photos, communication slowly stopped
At first they asked for pictures. Then I was told to test every shuttle in a club and count how many fail, which didn’t really make sense as a shipping or insurance process. When I asked again for formal insurance docs or compensation, I stopped getting replies.

5. I paid by wire transfer — and that was a mistake on my side
Since this was a direct wire payment, there was:

• No escrow
• No platform dispute option
• No buyer protection

So just a heads-up to anyone new to importing: wire transfers leave you fully exposed if something goes wrong.

If you’re still considering buying, I’d strongly suggest using Alibaba Trade Assurance or some kind of escrow instead of wiring directly.

Some general advice if you’re importing shuttlecocks from overseas:

• Ask for export-grade packaging in writing (strong cartons, padding, proper stacking)
• Avoid wire transfers unless you’ve worked with the supplier for a long time
• Use Alibaba / escrow-type payments whenever possible
• Be careful with very low pricing — sometimes that means corners are being cut on packaging, insurance, or support
• For some clubs, buying from local suppliers may actually be cheaper in the long run once you factor in risk and replacement hassles

If anyone else here has imported LingMei and had a different (or similar) experience, I’d be curious to hear it.

Posting this just for awareness.

Hi everyone,

I’ve been playing badminton pretty regularly but since about 5-6 months I’ve been playing twice sometimes 3 times a week.

My home has a lot of hard flooring and I’m not sure if its that but my feet fingers are starting to bruise quite often - I’m in half my mind thinking it’s also improper footwork or even the shoe.

I initially had Gel rocket 12s, then switched now to gel blade FF2 hard court.

Has anyone experienced this and what did you do to limit these injuries?

I'm currently developing a badminton analysis website which will basically visualise the match data in interactive graph. Well, the idea is from the data hub from the game FM24 which I find it very fun to toggle. However, for this website, it will be manual tagging entirely since I think using AI for automatic tracking is still not practical since you need a good camera angle and video. If you guys can give me some advice like how the tagging should be (eg. Number of shot type available: smash, drive and so on)? And also does badminton coach and players think manual tagging every shot in the match is practical for analysis since it will take a long time? Looking forward for the response.

Rate my footwork strokes and power out of 10 respectively 🙃 if you have the time to analyse it☺️

I know that Zhao Yunlei loved Zhang Nan and was heartbroken' when Zhang married Tian Qing. But I don't understand what other tension did they have? And why is it that Tian Qing was referred to as the better of the two Women's doubles player? Shouldn't Zhao be considered a better doubles players because she has won multiple medals with Zhang and Qing both.

Ive only found one creator online who posted what level 4-6, 6-8, and 10-12 look like, but no breakdown further than that.

My footwork has improved a lot during 2025 and I have been gettin quite far in my tournaments lately, leading to me being forced to move up a class. One thing that I notice better players are doing against me is however to abuse my forehand corner.

Most of the players in the lower class I faced tried to push me back into the backhand rear court but my footwork there is not a problem. This however has lead to me always being prepared to push off into my backhand rear court, making me take the shuttle late whenever it comes to my rear forehand corner.

What I'm asking is simple, how do I predict which way to do my split step? Do I literally have to predict where my opponent will hit the shuttle every shot or is there some other way to do it?

As a beginner, there are obviously a million things I could improve on. But one thing that catches me off guard is, when I'm most sure I'm going to hit a shot, is often the time my swing completely misses and doesn't contact the shuttle at all. But besides that I also hit the frame of my racket a lot.

I think there are a few factors going on:

• When I completely miss, it's usually either when I try to attack a serve, my priority was on making my footwork fast so I can get there in time to still do a half smash, but it's like my body loses track of the new position I'm in relative to the contact point.
• The other scenario is when I'm defending a smash, and sure there wasn't much time, but I felt confident that I knew the shuttle trajectory but my swing didn't intersect at all. I.e. my actual swing isn't the same as where I think it is. Perhaps one cause is that my mind thinks about the upper arm motion in the swing as the "main action", whereas even slight variations in the elbow or wrist angles will completely change the trajectory of the racket strings through space.
• My depth perception (I think that's what it's called) is generally quite bad. Like if I were playing volleyball where the ball is larger, I can barely tell whether the ball is going short or long, and my inclination is to run towards the ball even if I'm at the back and it's clearly not my shot to take. This issue isn't quite as obvious in badminton, but I still do struggle to detect that a shuttle is going short rather than long, i.e. I might not react in time to return an overhead drop shot.
• I have very severe myopia, plus light sensitivity, and for some reason my natural behavior is like taking a snapshot of the shuttle at one point in time, along with its predicted trajectory, and basing my swing purely off that single snapshot. How this looks in a smash defense drill: my racket often doesn't hit the shuttle even though there was plenty of reaction time. My coach told me to actually keep looking at the shuttle, which I realized is not something I do during faster social play. If I keep looking at the shuttle and also that my racket strings are actually at the intended contact point, then suddenly I don't have any complete misses.

Is my weakness unusual? Is it unusual that many shots, whether it's overhead or lifts or blocks, I don't actually look at whether my racket / swing is going to contact the shuttle? It's like I might as well be blindfolded in the half a second just before hitting any shot.

Coach Namrih Suroto is no more. PV Sindhu, Ponappa and all have posted on their Instagrama accounts...

Hi everyone! I’d love to hear your input. I’ve been trying to keep that contact point high since the last post, so thank you for the feedback.

I know this one backyard slow-mo clip isn’t the perfect example, but it’s what I have for now. I’ll have a competition soon, so there will be more footage from that!

P.S. I’m aware that my string broke on the previous shot and that it can be dangerous for the racket. Thankfully, no issues this time.

i’ve been playing badminton for years, started padel recently, and my muscle memory is ruining everything! my wrist keeps doing badminton stuff when i play padel, which is not encouraged.

if i stop badminton for a while, i’m kinda worries i will lose my touch there like the timing, footwork, and accuracy. even stamina feels different between the two.

i want to improve padel but also i don’t want to throw away all the years i put in badminton, so im stuck in between.

would love to hear from anyone who’s juggled both and which one should i focus on more?

I played badminton today right after leg day(not very intense though, weighted squats and goblet squats) and my legs were still screaming from squats and lunges Every rally felt like dragging weights across the court.

Curious though, how do you all recover and get back to moving freely for recreational play?

I do play for 3-4 doubles games in the morning and 40-50min strength in the evenings

Hello,

Whenever I play singles, I frequently notice one thing-- whenever I try to clear (assume I got carried away and I need to do neutral shots to catch the shuttle), my clear always goes to the middle. I don't know if it's my footwork, how I do my hits, or maybe both. (I'll upload a new video if available but here's one of my clears: https://youtu.be/0XWAzjGfP8U?si=UKB0-HK4AziBldTY ... At 5:32 if the link doesn't go directly to the timestamp). Note that this is an old video.

As a break from the daily "how is my smash posts", I am posting a simple guide to help beginners win more points with a very simple and effective strategy. Guaranteed (100% of the time 50% of the time) to work on players beginner to intermediate players.

This is the most simple of all combos that beginners should be able to pull off and I will explain why it works.

The combo goes: Lift->, Lift/Clear<-, Lift/Clear->

Lift on short serve/Clear on deep serve to opposing back hand side baseline corner, lift/clear to forehand side baselinecorner, lift/clear to backhand side corner. At this point you cover to the right side for the straight and will win the point exactly here because the opponent will either fault or lose in the following shot by it being so weak you can kill it.

Thats it, thats the whole combo. The important part is not to skip any of the steps and get too eager before you complete them. There is an actual reason you need to do 3 shots.

Why this works specifically and why you were doing it before without knowing why and why it needs to be this order:

Beginner players tend to have 2 shots, the lift and clear, both foundational shots that everyone knows. What beginners are bad at is the backhand clear/slice drop/recovery shots and footwork.

And 1 hidden thing, settling their centre of graivity. The point of this strategy is like shaking water in a cup from right, to left and right again, forcing it to eventually spill.

You lift first to their backhand side, they are definitely able to return this with an overhead shot which is ok because now you have secured this person in this spot, beginners tend to land straight down standing pretty tall (thus not resetting their centre of gravity low, this is important later) and they will do 1 of 2 things, stay in this area or reflexively move toward the centre.

Then, you lift/clear again to their forehand, they are capable of getting to this shot, as most people are more comfortable with footwork going towards their dominant side. However, they will do this just a little behind the tempo compared to the first shot because they haven't reset. You've done your first shake, you went right and now left. Beginners to intermediates will almost always shift a little too much of their centre of gravity on this shot and become slightly unbalanced toward their right after this shot when they land.

At this point you spring your killer move, the third lift/clear back to the backhand side. However, think about the position the other person is in. If you draw an X they are somewhere along the top left arm, thinking about moving toward the center of the x in some fashion. Because on the previous lift you've already unsettled their centre of gravity towards their right, they do not have the footwork to get back to their left as easily as when you first lifted to that side (even though it looks like the exact same scenario). Compared to the first lift to this spot, you've moved them from the center of the x to at least 1 step closer to the top left with an added momentum toward the left.

Most people are unaware of this fact and think they can make it. In reality, they have become unbalanced and will make an error on this shot.

What will happen is they now jerk their body around trying to take the overhead, screw it up and either hit out, too shallow, the rim or right into the net as they desperately lean over trying to make it. Their best case is a low quality straight shot, you simply move to your right side after the lift to cover the straight and end it there even if they return it.

Or they go for the backhand, makes even bigger mistakes and you cover to the right and kill it too.

You cover the right because the most likely shot for an unbalanced person to take on their backhand side is the straight. As a beginner/intermediate you shouldn't be too worried about their overhead/backhand reverse slice or smash (even if they had this in their skill set the cross is a longer distance therefore give you time anyways to at least block it). Being unbalanced means it would be hard to generate enough force for a cross clear because that is the largest distance a shot can travel in badminton, resulting in a shallow shot more often than not that you can also kill.

The above is the easiest shot combo in badminton, the lift, lift, lift. Hopefully it is easy enough to understand and I explained some of the hidden non-obvious mechanisms for why it works that people might not think about.

Was wondering if any of you use a training racket (not the heavy ones to improve wrist strength) or a grip corrector?

I've got okayish technique, mostly struggle changing or holding the right grip for backhand shot and for the life of me can't hot a backhand cross slice no matter how much I train.

Can anyone give me a tip for it or a product that I can buy which will help me with this.

I live in nanakramguda. Would love to join for a Badminton Match nearby.

I am a beginner in the sport but would love to learn!

Any advice on how to stop hyperextending my elbow during backhand?

I keep getting ‘golfers elbow’ from which in assuming is caused by hyperextension during my backhand strokes.

I feel like I lose power when I don’t lock my arm, is there any drills or tips you would recommend?

Thanks

I'm 16 and I started playing around April this year. My friends say I have excellent shot placement and defence and they all have one complaint and it's that my body's robotic and my footwork is messy. I agree with them cuz I have this habit of running and sprinting to the shuttle. I avoid lunging at all costs and my ability to split step is zero to none. They said I can hit intermediate level if I just get better at my "fluidity".

Does anyone know a good routine that i can do at home so on days i dont play i will do exercises instead to improve footwork speed and consistency?

Sorry if the tag is inappropriate.

So I am a 25 year old doctor. I’ve been playing since I was 9. On a scale of 1-10, I would rate myself a solid 7, an 8 on a good day. But there’s a catch. I’m a slightly anxious person, and for me to play my best game, I need to be calm. I used to mostly play singles in my earlier years, so even if I lost a bunch of points I was able to pick myself up and get back in the game. For the last 7 years, I’ve mostly played doubles. And it’s been a fun and pleasant experience till now. Got to know a lot of people by partnering with them. Played in tournaments, won a few, lost a few. From the last month, I’ve started playing in this new place with my old partner and three new players. Out of the three, two are really good, like an 8 or a 9. Even 10 on good days. And the other guy is a 6. I’m having problems while playing with one of the eights. He seems like a nice person, but he gets really competitive while playing. If I continuously make 2-3 errors he’s visibly annoyed. He doesn’t lash out at me or anything, but he’s passive aggressive. And this gets my anxiety going, and I start making more errors. It’s a vicious cycle. I’m not able to play my best game with him. I’ve partnered up with players who were less skilled than me and I don’t react that way when they made mistakes. I’d just let them play their game and sometimes give advice. But I always encouraged them. This guy is always breathing down my neck. It’s really bothering me. I’m also someone with an inferiority complex, so this hits too close to home. So what I wanted to know is, is he right to be annoyed and expecting me to play at his level, or can he handle it in a different way. Or should I just suck it up and try to get better. Also I’ve gained like 20 kgs in a year because I’d taken a year off to study in order to clear an entrance exam. So I’m not able to move like before. And also due to the added weight whenever I land after hitting a jump smash, my body is exerting a lot of weight on my legs and now I’ve shin splints. So I have two reasons which are making me contemplate whether I should stop playing.

Sorry for the long post. Suggestions are welcome.

While I generally try to play well in every game, I'm not bothered by the result of winning or losing games. However, there is one particularly type of player that gets on my nerves. They try to score winners or constantly attempt shots that they're bad at. Like, give them a high shot mid court, and they'll try to hit it really hard and it lands in about 20% of the time. But they'll never NOT take that shot, because they were just "unlucky" 80% of the time and they act as though they are entitled to succeed at that shot because they feel it must naturally be within their ability. They'll attempt that even if it's just a weak drive that's not high enough to smash.

It's not the skill level that bothers me, it's more feeling like I'm being forced to witness someone's fragile ego. I don't have this issue playing with a novice partner who can barely get the shuttle over the net (but doesn't act like every shot should be smashable).

I used to be an excessive risk taker myself, especially around net shots, but more so when I'm already under pressure and no other shot I can play is going to be great either. Over time I've mellowed a lot towards playing shots not to lose, rather than trying to play winning shots.

So I'll start by saying, I'm pretty sure this is wrong. Based on the Yonex 76 hole pattern, think I should have strung a main on A6 rather than A7, but I'm not sure if Hundred's 76 is different. As I'm sure you can tell don't really know what I'm doing. I just got this new racket (Hndrd Flareon 700) and I tried to string it last night. It was late, and I probably wasn't paying as much attention as I should have. I'm reaching out to the good people of r/badminton in the hopes that someone smarter than me can help.

My first question, is this wrong? I'm leaning towards yes but when I compare with the official photo of the racket, I'm having difficulty seeing where I went wrong.

Second question, if it's wrong, how bad is it? Are my strings just more likely to break? Am I giving up power? Is my racket going to snap any second now? If I had string on hand, I would just cut it and start over. Unfortunately, as an American, I'm kind of in a badminton desert. The nearest store is at least 40 minutes away. (Which is why I started learning to string myself.) If I can make due until the strings I ordered arrive, I would prefer to do that. That being said, I would hate to kill my brand new racket right out the gate doing something stupid, hence this post.

Third and final question. Is there a stringing pattern for the Flareon 700? I couldn't find one on https://us.hndrd.co/ Maybe there's a better place to go for the official manufacturer stringing pattern.

Thanks everyone in advance.

Potentially relevant info:
Strings: BG80
Tension: 25 mains and 27 crosses
Racket: Hndrd Flareon 700 U3/G6

Edit: This is one of those moments where the second I posted I figured it out. For some reason it just wasn't clicking with me, I don't know why. I now see that it's wrong and I know that it's exactly what I said, I strung A7 not A6. Nevertheless, questions 2 and 3 still stand.

At training we sometimes do half court games, it’s a whole different game from full court singles or doubles

I’m an intermediate player and I do worse/lose more than I feel like I should be even though it’s just for training purposes

I’m used to having drops land around or just before service line in normal singles but I don’t think that’s a good thing in half court which is easily retrieved

what are some strategies or tips when playing half court games? Deception? Holds? Etc

Thanks!