How To Intercept Shots At The Net In Badminton (7 Rules)
How To Intercept Shots At The Net In Badminton: A net interception in badminton is when the opponent hits a hard shot and the net player is able to hit that shot before it goes past them. Intercepting these shots will not only help your partner out, but it will give your opponents less time to react and put them under more pressure, helping you to win more points as a result! But sometimes it can be hard to know when you should intercept a shot or leave it for your partner. Or to know how to play a good shot when you’re intercepting. But if you can learn this you will be a much better badminton player! How To Intercept Shots At The Net In Badminton We’ll now go through each of these rules in more detail, so you can gain the knowledge and confidence to take your net interceptions to a whole new level! Rule 1 – Stand In The Correct Position How Far Back Should You Stand? A very common mistake we see is that people often stand too close to the net! Being too close to the net makes it more difficult to react in time, leading to you either mistiming the shuttle or missing it completely. We’d recommend standing around here to be able to intercept almost every shot: What Side Should You Stand On? Now you know roughly how far back to stand, which side should you stand on? Let’s go through two scenarios to help you understand this better. Scenario 1 When your opponents have lifted and you know your partner is in a good, threatening position at the back, you should stand slightly further over to the side that your partner is on (we’ll go through why you should to do this in the next rule). Scenario 2 When your opponents have lifted but this time your partner is off balance and in trouble at the back, you would now stand slightly to the other side. This is because your partner is likely to play a worse shot and your opponents will want to hit into the big gap on the other side of the court. Standing slightly to the other side means you’re more likely to be able to intercept this shot! Bearing those 2 scenarios in mind, you should almost never be stood in the middle of the court, and this is a very common mistake people make! If you only ever stand in the middle, it makes it difficult to intercept any shots to the sides – unless your opponents hit it straight to you. It also makes it difficult for your partner to know which side to cover, resulting in them having to cover BOTH sides! Another bonus tip is to have your feet at a slight diagonal in line with the corner that you think the shuttle is going to go, as this will help you be much faster and therefore more likely to intercept the shuttle! Rule 2 – Be Aware Of Where Your Partner Hits To: How To Intercept Shots At The Net In Badminton Being aware of where your partner hits to is important so that you can calculate the likely reply, and adjust your positioning accordingly! Here are 3 tips for mastering this: 1) If your partner is playing lots of soft drop shots and your opponents are taking it late then it’s almost impossible for them to play a flat lift, and the most likely shot is either a net shot or a high lift. In this scenario, you should be much closer to the net! 2) Add in some ‘set plays’ to create an interception opportunity. As mentioned earlier, if your partner is in a good position and you move slightly to the same side, your partner could hit a straight smash down the tramline because the most likely reply is a straight shot, which you can then intercept! This is called a ‘channel attack’. There’s 1 common mistake that prevents you from doing these set plays – a lack of communication with your partner. You can’t get angry at your partner for smashing down the middle and not setting up your amazing interception, because you haven’t told them to smash straight! 3) Listen to the sound of your partners strings as they’re hitting as this is the best way to figure out what shot they’re playing! To keep it simple, a louder sound is typically a smash, which means the shuttle is more likely to come back harder so you can intercept it, and a softer sound would typically be a drop shot where you then might move your position forward slightly. A lot of people tend to turn around to see what shot their partner is hitting, but we wouldn’t recommend this as it’s dangerous and you can’t keep an eye on what your opponents are doing, which leads us onto the 3rd rule… Rule 3 – Watch What Your Opponents Are Doing: How To Intercept Shots At The Net In Badminton Watching what your opponents are doing will help you decide how far back to stand, and also where to stand. Let’s go through 3 examples: 1) If you see your opponent coming in with a straight arm and one slow motion, they’re more likely to block the shuttle so you’d want to be stood closer to the net. 2) If they look like they’re preparing with a big back swing, this means they’re more likely to hit the shuttle hard and you can then be ready to intercept it. 3) Or, if you hear your partner smash and your opponent on the straight turns to face cross court you know the smash is going cross court, so you can start to move over! Seeing these cues from your opponent’s body and racket positioning will really improve your ability to intercept shots. Rule 4 – Correct Racket Positioning: How To Intercept Shots At The Net In Badminton We’d recommend being in a relaxed forehand grip for almost all interceptions, no matter which side the shuttle is on. This is because you should try not to change to a backhand grip to intercept a shot as it takes too long! This means you wouldn’t be taking the shuttle as early, and therefore wouldn’t
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