Why You Should Play Badminton Tournaments

Do you really want to get good at badminton? Do you want to be one of the best players in the world? You need to play badminton tournaments, or more if you already play some tournaments. While I do not guarantee that you’ll become the best player in the world, you will certainly improve if you put in the effort at badminton tournaments.

In this post, I will discuss some of the reasons why you should play badminton tournaments.

Measuring Skill

The number one reason for playing more badminton tournaments is because it’s a scale in which you can measure your skill.

It’s time to get a little philosophical here. How do you know if you’re good at badminton? Does beating one person over and over again make you good at badminton? Does someone telling you that you’re good at badminton make you good?

There is no right answer…

However, playing tournaments is the most surefire way to gauge your badminton ability. You will get exposure to many types of players and get the opportunity to compare yourself. Depending on the tournament, you can get ranking points as well which is a numerical representation of your skill level compared to others.

Winning and losing as well as the games themselves will show you how good you are at badminton. As you play more tournaments, especially provincial/state and national competitions where you may play against the same person multiple times, each of the scores and how well you feel after the games will show you your skill level.

Exposing Strengths and Weaknesses

Playing tournaments also expose yourself to strengths and weaknesses that you often don’t get exposed to during training. In training, there’s usually a set amount of people, and as such, after some time you’ll have played against each player enough to understand their strengths and weaknesses as well as yours…

Or as you thought.

Playing tournaments and against other players that you don’t usually play against actually exposes you to new strengths and weaknesses that you may not have experienced before. In training, when you play against a particular person enough times, you start to play the same shots against them every single time because you know that is what will get you the win. And they will also play the same shots in which you prepare against because you know that is their win condition.

But when you play against someone completely new with a different style and skill level, you might see yourself being hit from unique angles that you didn’t get hit before. As an example, when I was younger, I would play against heavy smashers all the time in which I would stand a little further back to defend. But little did I know, after playing some tournaments, I realized that I didn’t know how to respond to a slice drop from the back.

And thus, a new weakness was exposed prompting me to get better.

Your own weaknesses may be exposed, but you can also find new strengths to add to your game. Playing more tournaments allows you to see others use specific strategies that you may not have thought about before which in turn, you can try to see how well it performs for you.

After you find new strengths and weaknesses to add to your play, it’s all about understanding and applying to get better at badminton.

Getting Better At Badminton

The main benefit of tournaments is not helping you get better at footwork or smashing or playing drop shots, etc., playing more tournaments makes you a more versatile badminton player. Although you can find that there are certain areas of footwork that need help or individual shots that you can’t defend against, these things are practiced during training, not at the tournament.

Getting better at badminton from playing more tournaments has to do with exposure to other players and new surroundings. Playing against other players undoubtedly means that you’ll meet a variety of new playing styles and levels of skills. More tournament playing means that you will get more experience playing against individual playing styles and also create an understanding and plan of attack to win more games.

If you take the time to watch and analyze other people’s games as well as reflect on your own games, you can come up with a list of things that you need to work on. Then take that list to heart and work on what caused your losses!

I also found that playing tournaments help fire your spirit to improve. Finding players that are better than you or in really close skill proximity invites a sense invigorating sense of competition that allows you to concentrate on improving yourself.

The other benefit to playing more tournaments is getting more exposure to new surroundings and knowing how to react to things you can’t control such as temperature, potential drafts, quality of the court, or even things like an umpire and line judges when you get to that level of playing.

It increases the strength of your mentality which in turn lowers the chance of losing a game due to unpredictable circumstances.

Confidence

Speaking of mentality, tournaments can be huge confidence boosters. While the first few could go sour if you get destroyed first round or something or some other person decides it’s a good idea to make fun of you, over time, playing more tournaments will add to your understanding of yourself and reduce the stress and anxiety that usually comes.

A lot of this has to do with the “friendly” factor. When we try something new, most people will feel a sense of adrenaline that rushes over them sometimes preventing them from trying new things. It’s because we don’t know what to anticipate and we are feared by the possible adverse results.

But once you try it and then do it some more, the activity becomes more friendly. Things just feel more natural to you. Think about the first day entering a new school and then the experience in the school over time.

Badminton tournaments are the same thing. The first time we play a tournament, we’re scared. We’re afraid people judging us, afraid of losing, or afraid of doing something wrong and getting kicked out. The last one is me for just about anything I try for the first time.

But over time, even if those things happen, we gain a natural ability to counter the problems, and we become more accustomed to playing badminton at higher levels.

The Strategy

As we come to the end of this post, I want to talk about how we should go about playing tournaments. For every single one of us, we have different circumstances. Perhaps we have limited transportation, training, and support for playing badminton, or something else.

But here are some general guidelines you can follow.

1. New to tournaments? Start with a for-fun tournament. These are usually local tournaments and are also great places for socializing and connecting with other people.
2. Ambitious enough? Go for state/provincial tournaments. These tournaments are more competitive and generally come with rankings and are great for seeing high-level players in action.
3. Don’t start with national/international level tournaments unless they’re your only option! Unless your country is small enough where the only tournaments held are national tournaments, beginning with these tournaments can often be traumatizing as the skill level may be way higher than you expected and you could potentially be crushed to the point that you don’t want to play anymore. These tournaments often have higher costs and specific requirements anyways.
4. After each competition, remember to reflect on what happened! You need to work on what went wrong and potential new strategies that you could play in training after.
5. Tournaments often cost money. That’s a big problem for many, and thus, you should train to a point where you have stably covered your weak points from the last tournament and then join another.

And that’s it! Just remember that badminton tournaments aren’t only competitions where you have to win. The crucial part of all of this is to have fun!

There are also various extra benefits to playing more tournaments such as connecting with more people, free clothing or food (many tournaments have some sort of free thing), and even prizes sometimes in the form of a check for winners! All the more reason to play.

Any questions or experiences you’d like to share? I would love to hear your opinion so leave a comment down below! As always, good luck in your games and have a great day!