Practicing Badminton Serve with the Absence of Visual Feedback

Abstract

Introduction: The server in a badminton match is partly constrained by the accuracy of the outcome of his serves unless the opponent lets the shuttlecock impact the ground. Because the opponent hits the ball before the impact, the server has very limited feedback about the short serve accuracy. The short serve should be aimed as close as possible to the short service line. The practice can differ from the match conditions, as the serve is usually performed with various accuracy. Aim of Study: The aim is to find out if limiting the visual feedback affects the serve outcome in a badminton practice. Material and Methods: Ten competitive badminton players (29.4±5.7 years) with badminton experience of 10.4±3.9 years took part in the study. Altogether, each participant served 80 backhand short serves (20 with occlusion, 20 without occlusion, 20 without occlusion, followed by 20 with occlusion) on the court. Occlusion glasses blocked the server's vision in the moment of racket-shuttlecock impact. The shuttlecock impact on the court was recorded with the video camera and analyzed in Kinovea software. Results: The results showed a significant difference between the accuracy of serves without the occlusion (27.6±9.9 cm) compared to the visual occlusion (32.2±12.5 cm); t(9)=2.43, p<0.05, d=0.43. Conclusion: Visual feedback has a significant effect on the backhand short serve accuracy. Visual constrain of the serve outcome reduced the accuracy of the serves. In a practice match, the receiver could sometimes randomly let the shuttlecock impact the ground to provide feedback to the server.