What Makes A Good Badminton Racket

This the eternal question that all badminton players search for. With so many rackets available these days, all promising faster smashes, more control, more consistency for your game, more aerodynamic capabilities, lightning reactions and god knows what else, it can be very difficult to know what to go for. The truth is that the badminton racket is just a tool of the trade. Can it make you a better player? It can improve what you already have by a slight amount, that is the only truth in the hyped up marketing world we live in. It is exactly the same for other sports such as tennis, squash and golf. Golf is especially a problem, there are even channels dedicated to offering new technology and new clubs that will increase your driving length by 50 yards or whatever. People go for this hype, but is it all hype or is there some truth in it all?

Yonex have marketed the new Arcsaber Z slash as being the faster racket ever made. They didn't make the claim themselves they just allowed some players to test it for them by having a smash speed contest. The fastest recorded speed was achieved with the new Z Slash. It is a useful exercise in racket promotion because Yonex don't have the same marketing power they had a few years ago. When they sponsored all the top players they could just stick a picture of Lin Dan or whoever next to the product and casually mention that the worlds best player uses Yonex rackets. This is a big boost for any company to have because if the worlds best are using your equipment then it must be good enough for the rest of us. Yonex don't have this luxury anymore, so they have turned to other means. They now have to sell the racket as a stand alone product. Now that we all know that this new Z Slash is the reason behind the fastest smash ever recorded, does that make you want to go out and buy it?

It probably does for the less informed badminton players around the globe. All around the world there are novice players opening up their new Arcsaber trying to belt the cover off the shuttle. They are all very upset when they don't get the results they were after. Why does this happen? Because they don't even know if the racket suits their game before they buy it. They may not have the technique to generate the power they are looking for. If you have a suspect technique then no racket is going to make you play better, no matter how much it costs. You have to know your own game inside out before you can recognise how good any badminton racket is for you. You need a very consistent technique to be able to tell if there is a difference in what you are playing with.

The way i can spot if a racket is better or worse for me is in how much it helps me do what i do. I keep going on about low work and high work rackets, and there is a good reason for this. A badminton racket is designed to make life easier, just like a tennis racket or a golf club or whatever. If you are an advanced player then you will have consistency. This is the be all and end all in every sport, consistency. Beginners and intermediate players are those who are climbing the ladder of consistency. Without consistency you are erratic and unpredictable. You can hit a sizzling smash and then hit a slower smash on the very next shot. You don't really know why this has happened, it just has. The same applies to golf. There are millions of recreational players out there who can hit good shots and bad shots. Tennis players can hit aces and then double faults on the next shot. This happens because of faulty technique mainly. There are other factors such as footwork and positioning which play a huge part as well. All these small things combine to give you the finished result, and it all comes down to you, the player. This goes on before you have even hit the shot, the racket has not become a factor yet.

An advanced player has this consistency, they can hit the shuttle wherever they want to from any position on court. The shuttle will land in around about the same place most of the time. It doesn't really matter what racket they are using, they will always get similar results. Their technique is refined and grooved and consistent, and the game is so much simpler and easier. Their smashes will be around about the same speed all the time. This the amount of work they put into every shot based on their technique. The second you start trying to hit harder then that is when problems begin to surface. Your technique is not as consistent and the result is a lack of control and direction. Errors begin to creep in to your game. Buy hey, it can't be the racket because Yonex say it will allow you to smash at unbelievable speeds right? There is some truth in this because that racket has not changed, you have. You are now the problem not the racket.

A good badminton racket is a low work racket. If you hit a clear it should land in the back tramlines more often than not if you have the right technique and positioning. The difference between a good a good racket (one that suits your style of play)and a bad racket (one that doesn't) is how much it helps you. I can pick up a racket and hit a few clears with it. I will look and see where the shuttle has landed. Hopefully my technique is consistent enough for me to notice any difference. Where did the shuttle land compared to another racket? Was it shorter or further? If it lands short, then all things being equal, ie string tension, then the racket is less efficient for me. If the shuttle lands further away then that racket is more efficient for me. For the same amount of effort i have seen a different result. I did not try to hit the shuttle harder, or with more force, i just let the racket do its thing. In effect i have tried to isolate the racket from my myself so i can see if there is a difference to my shot with it. This is very difficult to be totally 100% accurate because there are always going to be slight differences with technique from one shot to the next. The better players have very little differences so they can tell straight away what is happening. They can then say to themselves, this racket feels good because i can now hit the shuttle a bit faster with the same amount of effort. Or i now find it easier to hit a clear because the shuttle is travelling further with the same amount of effort. You then have to make adjustments to compensate for this. There is not much point in having a racket that enables you to hit the shuttle further if the result is that you are hitting everything out of the back line.

I did my own tests with the lead tape on the bottom of the handle to see if there was any truth in the research that i looked into. Well it did work for me. For the same amount of effort the shuttle travelled further, about 6-10 inches difference. This was a very big difference for me. For about £2 i had just made my racket more efficient. The research was right for me. Not many players use lead tape on the bottom of the handle because they have never heard about it, most add it to the top of the racket. It still makes a difference but it is worse for your arm and shoulder in the long run. Adding any weight will make the racket feel more cumbersome around the net area, but you have to decide what is best for your game. It is just a balancing act, you win at the back with increased power but lose at the front of the court due to the added weight.

And so we come back to the Arcsaber Z Slash. No doubt this racket is a quality piece of engineering. I have not even played with one, but i know that it will be a very consistent racket. It will be stable on impact because almost every badminton racket that is on the market today has similar technologies that aid stability. The differences are only slight, which is why any badminton racket will only help you by a small margin. You are not going to smash the shuttle twice as hard with a Z Slash or any other make or model. However, there may well be a small difference which can make things easier for you. These small differences can make a difference to your game.

Take this as an example. Give an advanced player a £10 steel beginners racket with factory strung strings at about 15lbs tension when are used to playing with a stiff framed high technology racket strung at 30lbs. What happens? Well at first the player thinks, god this feels shit. Their shots are not as consistent as they normally are. The shuttle is not going where they want it to. However, after about an hour things are improving. The player has got used to the new racket and the string tension, and while it still does not feel right, the shots are becoming more consistent and accurate. They have already compensated for the difference. After two hours of play there is now not much difference at all. All the clears are landing in the right place, and the smashes are going where they intended them to. The point i am trying to make is that good players can play with anything and make it work. The racket will still feel hard to work with, it would be high work racket, but the result is around about the same. Perhaps a 5% difference?

The flip side of this is the beginner who has just gone on the internet and seen the new Z Slash yonex racket. They see that this racquet is behind the fastest ever recorded smash and they think, i gotta get one of those because it will improve my smashes. The result is that they have no idea if that racket has improved their game or their smash because their technique is faulty. They cannot compensate for the difference so their game just carries on as normal. Sure, they may hit the occasional great shot, but they could have done this with any other racket. My suggestion is that a novice player is going to find it very difficult to make an informed decision.

I play golf about twice a year, i am very bad, i have no consistency because my technique is all over the place. You could give me the most expensive golf club with the latest technology that promises to make me drive the ball an extra 30 yards. It will be a useless exercise because i have no way of telling if that club has made a difference to my driving. However, if you give the same club to tiger woods he would be able to tell the difference right away. Some golf clubs have been banned because of the difference they can make, so technology does make a difference. Grooves in the club head allow players to get more spin on their iron shots, so we now see balls landing on greens and spinning backwards by a considerable amount. The problem is you need to have the right technique to get this result. Most players cannot do this because their technique is flawed. The same applies to badminton and any other racket sport.

So back to the question of what makes a good badminton racket? The answer is you do. In most of my racket reviews i mention power and control, and that is a bit misleading because power and control come from technique, and yours is different to mine, so what i think is a powerful racket may not be the same for you. In reality no racket is "powerful" it just makes it easier to get some power that is generated by yourself. Same applies to control, you have to create your own control, the racket will be useful for making it easier to control the shuttle if the head is stable on impact. You can then get more consistency with your technique. Remember though that it is the strings that connect with the shuttle, and they play a much bigger part in terms of control.

I like high tension strings, i believe they give me more control over the shuttle. Some people argue that this is not the case, and that low tension is better for control because the shuttle is in contact with the strings for longer. The truth is that high tension does give more control and it comes down to the movement of the strings on impact. If you have loose strings then they will move more on impact. This means you do not have a totally stable base when you hit the shuttle, which equals less control. Tight strings will not move around as much so there is more control available. The racket simply holds the strings in place, so if you add a stable frame to all of this then you will have even more control.

If you are thinking of buying a new badminton racket then please experiment with the strings first. They have a real impact on your game. I would much rather have a cheap racket strung at 30lbs than a Yonex Z Slash strung at 20lbs. The strings will have more of an effect than the racket ever will. What makes me laugh is that in the UK the manufacturers maximum string tension for the Z Slash is 24lbs. This has been the case for many years now and it really gets on my nerves. Take central sports in the UK, the biggest authorised yonex dealer in the UK. It has taken a long time for them to finally offer stringing at higher tensions. They go to a maximum of 28lbs with the Z Slash but cannot be responsible for anything over 24lbs. Ok this is a fair point. But in the past you got a good racket with shit tension, which is a waste for me. The first thing i would do is take out those crap factory strings and throw in something better at higher tension, then i would see how the racket felt. Anything else is just a waste of time.

I could play with my cheap £20 racket with 30lbs tension and tell you that it has more control than a Z Slash at 20lbs tension. It has nothing to do with the racket and everything to do with the strings. So the next time you see some marketing that promises extra control on your shots, understand that the strings will be largely responsible for that.

A good badminton racket is one that makes things easier. I think next time i do a review i will base it on how easy it is to work with. I know i am givimg the new yonex racket a tough time here and i keep on referring to it. So far the most efficient racket i have played with is the apacs lethal 70. I consider that racket to be the best for my game. The Z Slash may be just as good, perhaps better than the lethal 70, i will not know until i have actually tested it. I also just bought the apacs nano pro tour 9600 because i liked that as well, and it was a good price. There is no way i am going to pay £150 or however much that Arcsaber is, just to test it out. If someone wants to send me one then fine, it will get tested and reviewed.

Can you compare one racket to another? I can compare it for my own game, not yours. For example, when i tested the Edgesaber 7 and 10 from apacs i said that to get the best out of it you needed to hit the shuttle right smack in the centre of the string bed every time. For me the Edgesabers are hard to work with, the head is not as stable as with the lethal 70, the tantrum 160 or the nano pro tour 9600. Or my old carlton airblade tour or the browning oxylite i used a few months ago. I could still play with the edgesabers but they didn't help me out as much. My clears where coming up shorter than with the other rackets, i am only talking about inches here, but over the course of a game it makes a difference because i was having to compensate that little bit by swinging me arm faster on impact. This leads to less control because i have changed my technique just a bit. After an hour everything is back to normal and control is much better, but when you compare this to the others it just means i had to compensate more for those edgesabers. So in my review i give it less control than the lethal 70, and less power because for the same effort i did get less power. This not to say the edgesaber is a less powerful racket for someone else. They may have a much faster swing speed and better technique, so in this case they will generate more power from this racket.

However i can compare my own findings to another racket that i have tested. I can't know for sure that i can generate a bit more power on my smash using a lethal 70 than with an edgesaber 7 or 10 for the same amount of effort unless i get a speed gun and test it. But i get better length on my clears with the lethal 70 for the same effort because i have seen it in action. The tension was the same for all rackets so i base my conclusion on this. The difference is only a few inches, but there is a small difference nonetheless.

The adverts on the central sports web site for the new yonex racket has a big banner that states some guy hit a world record smash of 414 km/h, and that the Z Slash increases offensive power and smashes. The only real way to find out if one racket is more powerful than another is to test them without the human element. Only the guy who hit that smash will know if he put a bit more effort into it than he did with a previous smash.

You could create a machine that simulates a smash action and then hit it into a suspended shuttle. The record the speed of the shuttle at a fixed point. All the rackets would need to be to exact same tension from the same string manufacturer. You would still get differences, such as the shuttle quality and string quality variances but it would be as consistent as you could possibly be. Only then would you find a true answer to the question. It would be great if someone actually did it.

Latest Apacs Badminton Rackets

I have just received another batch of Apacs badminton rackets to test. They are..

1. Fusion Hotshots 7777
2. Fusion Hotshots 7778
3. Nano 7007 Power
4. Tantrum Power 160

All these rackets are strung at 28lbs tension with Apacs strings. These are not available on the Apacs website yet because they are for the new season, so i have a little bit of an advanced testing on my hands. I also do not know how much they are going to cost. This a good thing because my reviews will be be purely based on how good i think the rackets are. If you pay a lot for a racket it can sometimes sway your opinion. Most people believe that if something costs more then it must be better. This is not the case, as the nano 999 Power showed last month.

There are a few other Apacs rackets on sale at the website at the moment that i have not tried out, hopefully this will change.. The product listings are also growing nicely on the website as more stock comes in. Give it another year and there will soon be a whole lot more to choose from. From looking at the Apacs catalogue there appear to be loads of rackets on sale in the far east that have not hit the UK yet. However, they are slowly making there way here.

There is also a special offer on at the moment on the Apacs site, with delivery just 1p. There is also a £7 discount on the Aero Flight 700 shuttles. I tested these a good few months ago, and was very impressed with them. The price has gone up since then, which is a shame, but all shuttle prices have gone up a lot over the last year. I really need to find some cheap ahuttles that are decent quality. If some manufacturer can come up with something right now then they could make a killing. The holy grail is a budget shuttlecock that has quality and durability.

I will be testing the rackets over the next few weeks, so look out for the up coming posts as i give my verdict on them.

Li Ning BadmintonRackets

I was watching the Surdiman cup finals today on the internet and saw the chinese badminton team kitted out in their Li Ning gear. They were also using Li Ning badminton rackets. I had heard some time ago that Yonex could not afford to sponsor the chinese national team and so they are now sponsored by Li Ning. In the UK, virtually nobody has ever heard of this brand, i certainly hadn't. The Korean team were also playing with Victor rackets and equipment, and they were previously sponsored by Yonex. It would appear that Yonex is losing it's dominance..

Is this is a good thing? I say yes it is because we may finally see some real competiton and this will help to make Yonex drop their prices. Here is another burning question for all those people who have been brainwashed by Yonex over the years- how can it be that these top players can still play at the same level without yonex badminton rackets? The answer is that yonex rackets have been hyped up for years and people automatically believe they must be the best because they are the most expensive.

How can Lin Dan beat Lee Chong Wei playing with a Li Ning racket, when Lee is playing with a yonex racquet? I have never even seen a Li Ning racket in my life, i didn't even know they made badminton racquets, but it seems this makes little difference to Lin Dan, or the rest of the chinese team. The same goes for the koreans who use the Victor rackets. This illustrates my point very well, that it depends on who is holding the racket, ie the player. This past year has seen the biggest shake up as far as sponsorship goes, with teams switching manufacturer, yet all these players are still playing at the same level. This means that the badminton racket is not that important, which is what i have been saying for the last year on this blog.

Will this mean the demise of Yonex? Will they become a second rate brand? Will they lose their market share? I think they will certainly see a drop in sales in China because people will start to use the Li Ning rackets. I bet that Victor will see an increase in sales as well because if they are good enough for the top players then they must be good enough for the rest of us right? This is what sells racquets. This is why the likes of Victor have paid so much money to sponsor these teams.

There will no doubt be interest from players in the UK about Victor and Li Ning. I guarantee that the online retailers will be looking to stock more of these badminton rackets. I bet central sports will be a little bit worried about this, as they are the biggest Yonex dealer here in the UK. But i bet the smaller shops will be over the moon because if Yonex loses it's grip on them, they can now just stock other brands who will not price fix everything, and so us players will get a better deal.

I may be wrong here, and it could end up being the same situation, just a different manufacturer, but i don't think so. It has always been the case that people view Yonex at the top of the tree, and every other brand comes behind them. Brands such as Carlton, Wilson, Head, Forza, Apacs, Fleet, Victor, and any other brand out there. The reason is that we have been brainwashed for years by Yonex, by clever marketing and high prices. I have used Yonex badminton rackets in the past but they were no better than the Carlton Airblade i used, or the Apacs rackets, or the Browning rackets from Racketworld. The only difference was the price, which is the biggest factor for me. There is now way on this earth that i would pay over £100 for a badminton racket and many others feel the same way too.

On another note, i am reliably told that i am getting some new Apacs rackets to test. Not sure what they are yet, but they are new for the coming season here in the UK. I am also getting some Apacs badminton shoes to try out, so hopefully i will post these reviews pretty soon.

Badminton Racket String Tension- The future

There is much debate about string tension and how it effects power and control. I have looked into this in previous posts and the answer is that it all comes down to who is holding the badminton racket, ie, it all depends on you. Some players argue that low tension means more power and high tension means less power. Then you have the argument over control, and some say low tension means less control, and high tension means more control. Is there a right answer to all of this? Probably not because it all depends on the player, always will.

There is no right and wrong answer to this and i will tell you why. Let's take the notion that low string tension gives more power. This is based on the fact that at low tension the strings will flex more and act like a slingshot, and propel the shuttle off the string bed, thus giving the power. Sounds reasonable doesn't it? The problems start when you add the player into this. Everyone has a different swing speed, so the strings are going to flex differently depending on the swing speed of the player, and so you will get varying amounts of power.

The same goes for the notion that high tension gives less power. Does it? It all depends on how fast you can swing your badminton racket, and so make those strings flex enough to generate power. If you are a beginner and you string your racquet at 30lbs, chances are the shuttle will not travel very far because you simply cannot make the strings flex enough, period.

If you measure the swing speed of a player, and they already do this with speed guns, it should be possible to find the best string tension to give the maximum power for any given player. They do this type of thing in golf already to find the best club to match the player. Perhaps they have already done this for badminton. Can you imagine how good this would be?

You could have your swing speed analysed and then matched to the best tension for you. I suppose you could also match the exact racket to your swing speed as well. The manufacturers know the flex ratings of all their badminton rackets, so it would be possible to know exactly how much any racket would flex from a certain swing speed.

I wonder if someone like Yonex has thought of this already. They already have a speed gun at the All England where you can go and find out just how fast your swing is. They could then tell you what the best tension is for you from your swing speed. Going a bit further, they could probably tell you which actual racket would be the best for you, and with which string tension you should be using as well.

Can you imagine how many rackets they could sell from this information? Any racket manufacturer going could also do the same thing for their entire badminton racket range. The only problem is that the major manufacturers do not have their own shops, but if a retailer had a speed gun in their shop? Jesus, i think i have just found the answer to all badminton players dreams. I can see it now... The retailer has a little book that has all the different rackets flex ratings, and from this they know how much it will flex from any given swing speed. In fact you probably don't even need this, you would have a computer program that would calculate it all for you. You just enter the swing speed and the program does the rest.

The customer just brings their own badminton racket with them and uses this for the swing speed test, and then you get the correct tension to use for this racket. Perhaps this is the way forward, who knows, but if i was a badminton retailer it would sure be a pretty novel idea to sell more rackets

Choosing a Badminton Racket

Choosing the right badminton racket can be a very important decision no matter what standard you play at. There is such a huge choice available these days, it can seem a little daunting to know which is right for you. Hopefully i can help you choose the right badminton racket that suits your style of play.

During your quest to find the perfect badminton racket you will come across the established manufacturers such as Yonex, Carlton, Wilson, Head, Prince and countless other brands, who all want you to choose their racuets. Yonex are the most successful and popular brand, but which company you choose is up to you. This is where the fun begins. But with the right guidance and advice you will be able to make an informed decision, so that you find the right racket for you, and only you.

Every badminton player is different, with their own strengths and weaknesses. The trick is to find the right badminton racket which compliments your style of play. Now, you can spend a fortune on your weapon of choice, or, like most of us, you will probably have a limit on what you want to spend. Remember, you are investing in your game, to hopefully improve yourself, so you need to choose wisely.

It can be a real pain in the backside, when you have just gone out and spent a whole load of your hard earned cash on the latest "must have" badminton racket, only to find it doesn't live up to your expectations, and you can't understand why you aren't playing like the adverts say you should be. Guess what? you have just fallen for the marketing hype, and it's a subtle, sinister little trick that we experience every day of our lives. However, if you follow my advice i can hopefully point you in the right direction, so you can make the best decision.

You need to think of your badminton racket as the cherry on top of the cake. Without the base and the ingredients your little cherry ain't going to taste so sweet. In case your wondering what the hell im going on about, the base and ingredients are your game, it's your footwork, technique, grip, fitness and tactics. Without these, your shiny new racket is useless, and the shuttle will not go where you want it to. I would say that any badminton racket you buy will give you, at most, an extra 5% to your game. The strings you put in your racket are probably more important than the racket itself. The other 95% is all down to you. But don't worry about that, i will help you get the most out of yourself, so you can get the most out of your game.

I have played with dozens of different rackets over the years, from many different manufacturers, and they all offer something a little bit different, sometimes it's good, sometimes not so good, it's all part of the experience of finding the one that you know suits you down to the ground. It's a great feeling when it happens, but first of all you need to know about yourself, your own game, then you can tailor the right racket to your game, not the other way round.

What type of player are you? Are you a power player who likes to smash the shuttle hard? Or perhaps your a touch player who likes to move the shuttle around the court with angled shots and deception. Once you know what kind of game you play, you need to find out which badminton racket will bring out the best in your shots, and improve your badminton.

If you are just starting out the chances are that you will not know what type of player you are yet. It's just part of learning the game. There is not much point in buying the most expensive bats at this stage, you will not notice much difference in your play, trust me. As your skill level improves you will then start to know more about yourself and this is when you start to look for a better racket. The more you improve the more you will understand the basics, and you will be looking for that little bit extra to beat the competition, this is where your badminton racket comes in, but it will only give you a slight advantage, period.

In upcoming posts i will guide you through the badminton racket basics, what to look for, what to avoid, how much to spend, and where to buy.