One of the most efficient and smoothest badminton players ever has to be Lee Hyun Il from South Korea and there are good reasons why he’s one of our most highly requested players to study.
Lee Hyun Il has had one of the longest careers of any men’s singles badminton player, with a career lasting almost two decades. But it’s one thing to play for a long time and another to play at a high level for a long time.
At the age of 38, Lee Hyun Il was still winning world tour tournaments which is insane considering how demanding badminton is as a sport.
There are things Lee Hyun Il does very well to help him play at the pro level for so long that you can implement in your own games.
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Those who have heard of Lee Hyun Il will know him for his extremely smooth and stable movements on court. In fact, Chinese national team coach, Xia Xuan Ze, once said that Lee Hyun Il’s footwork was the best and even better than that of Lin Dan.
Now, instead of talking about Lee Hyun Il’s actual footwork movements, we want to focus on another, potentially more important, reason why Lee Hyun Il moves so smoothly on court.
Essentially, Lee Hyun Il moves smoothly because of the shots he plays. Certain movements are much easier on the court, and he is an expert at playing shots where the most likely returns are easy for him to move to.
So, instead of just studying Lee Hyun Il’s footwork movements, we should also study what shots he chooses to play.
All of his shots typically go past the service line and he rarely plays the net. And even when he does play the net, it’s usually a cross net.
As long as Lee Hyun Il’s shot quality is good, which it often is, the only returns his opponent can play will generally go past the service line. Watch these rallies and pay attention to what kind of shots Lee Hyun Il’s opponents play off these pushes.
You’ll notice that almost all of his opponents’ shots off the push must pass the service line. From these positions, it is very unlikely for players to play a fast shot that’s tight to the net.
If the opponents take too much pace out of the shot, the slow shot speed is very easy for Lee Hyun Il to play with and puts his opponents out of position.
The clears are also easy for Lee Hyun Il to deal with because after playing a push, he’s generally positioned in the middle of the court. If his opponent clears, Lee Hyun Il only has to take a few steps back.
The key to being able to do this in your own games is practicing your push quality. You have to pay close attention to the height and speed of your push.
A push that’s too flat is easy for your opponent to cut off, and you do not always have the time to recover. A push that’s too high and slow often leaves your opponent with too many options and, hence, hard to guess what they’re going to play.
You need to find the middle ground where the shot is fast but also high enough that it goes over your opponent and ideally forces them to take a late forehand or backhand.
Lee Hyun Il moves so well because his pushes are often on point and gives him both the time to recover and ability to predict what shot is coming.
A similar logic can be applied to Lee Hyun Il’s blocks and nets. By blocking with some pace and doing it when Lee Hyun Il’s opponent is further back in the court, his opponents’ most likely return is generally a push or lift.
Lee Hyun Il’s goal is really to eliminate playing the net. This way he doesn’t have to run back and forth across the whole court and drain his energy. Instead, he plays shots that make the court smaller and thus, easier to move around.
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Now, shot selection and quality aren’t the only things to watch for from Lee Hyun Il. You should also pay attention to how Lee Hyun Il contacts the shuttle.
First, Lee Hyun Il always stabilizes before hitting the shuttle. He would rather stabilize his body first and contact the shuttle at a lower point over attacking as soon as possible.
Second, Lee Hyun Il generally controls all of his shots using his fingers and wrist. His shots rarely involve large turns and movements in his upper body.
One reason Lee Hyun Il is very stable on court is because he uses the two points mentioned to hold the shuttle in his court and control the game’s rhythm.
To understand this, let’s first think about what happens if you attack the shuttle as early as you can and sacrifice a little bit of stability. Let’s say your opponent plays a push and you immediately jump out for a smash.
You might contact the shuttle super early and put pressure on your opponent, but the return is also going to be very fast. If you’re slightly out of position when you play the attacking shot, you could easily lose the rally as you’ll need to recover when your opponent has already played their return.
By stabilizing first, even at the cost of taking the shuttle lower, it’s much easier to get to the next shot because you’re already in position to move.
This is what we mean by holding the shuttle in your court.
You want to force your opponents to play to your rhythm and the first part of this is to make sure you stabilize before you hit so that you’re always prepared to move to the next shot at your preferred timing.
Having a short swing that’s controlled within your wrist and fingers is also what will help you be more stable. Lee Hyun Il’s exceptional ability to play his shots with minimal usage of his body reduces the need to spend time and energy returning his upper body to his neutral position.
Lee Hyun Il’s short swing is also the second part to holding the shuttle in your court.
By being able to play to any corner on the court with such a short swing, it makes it very difficult for his opponents to predict what shot he’s going to hit. Thus, opponents often have to respect all options and cannot aggressively position to punish Lee Hyun Il’s shots.
The short swing also makes it easy for Lee Hyun Il to use slow into fast pace changes that catch opponents off guard.
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Of course, there are times when you do want to gamble and put pressure on your opponents. If you’re a faster player who has the physical capabilities to quickly change speed and direction on the court, playing more aggressively is something you probably want to do, too.
For someone like 38-year-old Lee Hyun Il, he probably doesn’t want to play a smash net style where he’s sprinting around the court.
This is also Lee Hyun Il’s weakness, though.
He almost never goes for full smashes, drives, or spin nets and rarely increases the speed of his footwork to put more pressure on his opponents.
That’s why some people refer to Lee Hyun Il as the gatekeeper.
He excels against more inexperienced players who rush and attack predictably. But against other top players who have the consistency to play at Lee Hyun Il’s speed forever and have dangerous attacking shots, it’s difficult for him to push himself to win every rally. We can’t expect a 38-year-old to beat 20-year-olds after all.
Regardless, it’s still very impressive that Lee Hyun Il has not only continued playing at the pro level in his late 30s but also winning titles.
It’s because he’s super efficient with his gameplay. By placing high-quality shots in certain parts of the court, he can make his movements more comfortable by reducing the options his opponents can play.
Additionally, stabilizing before any shot and practicing using a short swing that requires minimal body movement will make it easier for you to move on the court.
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