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Faking a lift, and then playing a net shot

You make an apparently powerful lift action (the fake), but stop the racket short of the shuttle, withdraw it slightly to start a new (and softer) swing, and play a net shot.

This deception is suitable for using against opponents who are slow to read your shots, and therefore need a very obvious fake action in order to be deceived. At higher levels of play, this deception is rather useless, as the accuracy penalty is too great.

A more sophisticated version

This deception has three parts:

1. You prepare as normal, ready for a straight net shot.
2. As the shuttle approaches, you withdraw your racket a short distance, as though playing a deceptive lift.
3. You slow down the lift action, and play a straight net shot.

This deception is suitable for using against opponents who can read your shots quickly. The idea is to make them think they’ve spotted your deceptive intention (the lift), and then reverse the deception so that you play the original fake shot (the net shot). Against inexperienced players, you may find that this deception is too subtle: they will not notice your fake lift action, and will continue blithely forwards towards your net shot.

Essentially, this deception relies on your opponent looking out for deceptions. Against opponents who are not watching for deceptions, this attempted deception will fail; in other words, you’ve chosen a deception that is too sophisticated for the opponent.

This deception has much better accuracy than the previous one, but you will still lose some accuracy.

An overhand version

This time, you’re going to fake a net drive and play an overhand net shot. This is mainly useful in doubles.

You need to make an action suggestive of a powerful drive, but don’t overdo it: drives from the net require little power anyway. Don’t make a large arm swing, as this will ruin the accuracy of your shot; but do bend your wrist back, as though preparing to flick the wrist forwards and hit the shuttle with a sharp tap action.

Your speed of forwards movement alone can often freeze the opponents. When a player moves forwards very fast and aggressively to the net, it’s natural to expect he will play a fast shot. You can use this expectation to your advantage.

At the last moment, slow down the hitting action, so that you play a net shot. Keep your wrist bent back throughout the shot, and gently push it over the net.