One danger of becoming predictable with your serve is that your opponent gets enough time to anticipate and respond in a way that puts you on the back foot. This is where a forehand flick serve comes to the rescue. This looks like a low serve, but in reality, goes all the way back to the rear court area. It’s a surprise serve which tends to displace your opponent as he expects it to drop low in the front court area but instead finds it going to the rear.

It puts pressure on your opponent’s movement, thereby gaining you an immediate advantage. One thing to take care of though, is that you need to play the forehand flick serve with enough height and length to prevent your opponent from intercepting it midcourt and smashing it back.

Posture, Position and Technique

To execute this serve, begin in a side stance with a basic grip, the same grip you’ve used for the previous two serve techniques. Do not hold the racquet too tight as it can affect the flexibility of your wrist. Start transferring your weight from the back leg to the front, and drop the shuttle to the side, in front of you. Bring the racquet downwards from an elevated position and swing it forward. As you strike the shuttle, push it hard, and follow-through the racquet, high and long, towards your opposite shoulder.

Perfecting Your Serve

Now it’s only a matter of practice to improve your serve. The shuttle tubes exercise you saw in the previous posts is applicable here as well. Place a few shuttle tubes together, making a box and set your target. The objective is to make the shuttle fall inside it.

While the forehand flick serve is quite useful as a surprise tactic, you need to ensure your movement is seamless and fluid as you play it, so you don’t give away any hints to your opponent. The best way to get it right is of course practise, practise and then some more. Now that you know a few forehand serve techniques, the next post will introduce backhand serves, starting with the backhand low serve. Read on to know more.