From Badmintonist to Pickleballer

Recently, a friend of mine came by for a visit and as usual, I had pickleball streaming on the TV. This friend of mine, whom I’ve come to know through pickleball but comes to the sport with a strong badminton background.

On this particular day, we got to talking about the skill, technique, and strategy of her former sport.

It really had me thinking about the skills that can potentially crossover into pickleball and although I have shared some of my thoughts with regard to general comparisons between the two sports, I’ve never really looked at badminton closely since going all-in on pickleball.

So, I tried to take the opportunity to do so while she was visiting; we turned on doubles badminton and quickly landed on a few past championship doubles matches.

What I took away that day, is that competitive badminton is physically exerting and very impressive to watch.

These players who no doubt have years of experience are extremely athletic and have me thinking that generally speaking, a badminton player could really have a big advantage over pickleball, depending on which skills they carry over.

Photo credit: Badminton Bites

As long as my online research hasn’t steered me in the wrong direction, badminton has a strong history, originating in China almost 2,000 years ago before being brought to England.

Fast forward many centuries later, Badminton Canada is the governing body for the sport in the country and was officially formed in 1921.

The sport was first demonstrated during the Munich games in 1972 and appeared as a medal event in 1992 in Barcelona. These days, it seems the highest level of competition is the BWF (Badminton World Federation) Tour with $120K being awarded to the top singles player and $126K going to the top doubles team.

This is more money than anyone pickleball event pays out - according to the PPA tour, the average player payout was $96K for the entire 2022 season.

Photo credit: Winnie Tam

In terms of the playing surface, it’s important to point out that a pickleball court has the exact same outer dimensions as a badminton court.

20 feet wide by 44 feet long. So, players transitioning into pickleball will have a strong sense of court and spacing awareness. Where they may need a little more time getting familiar is when serving - at the back, deep from the baseline instead of at the top of the service line.

Badminton players are accustomed to standing at the service line to serve, which is 6.5 feet off the net, and can approach the net at any time to retrieve the birdie as close as need be.

Unlike pickleball, which has the non-volley zone, an area 7ft from the net that just outright confuses new players; especially for people who are used to standing close to the net to make a shot.

The biggest difference with the badminton court are the inner lines, used for singles play. In pickleball we do not use different lines for singles, the court size remains the same.

Badminton players hit the birdie at all sorts of angles, oftentimes, with their legs in the air. The only scenario or shots in which I found this to be similar to pickleball is the scorpion shot or frypan forehand shot.

Basically, a shot that catches you somewhat off guard and the only chance of making clean contact with the ball is to contort the body to make it work.

With regards to strategy, a badminton team really must work in true tandem with one another. They seem to play offensive side-to-side and defensive front-to-back.

The interesting part about this is the high level of footwork that’s required (players must be light and deft as they move about) and yet, the majority of shots players are set or grounded to the floor and they flick their wrist to execute the shot which is a bit of a no-no in pickleball.

The flicking doesn’t really translate well on the pickleball court, and in fact, I do see badminton players first entering pickleball struggle against players who impart spin. Most badminton players I know are working hard to eliminate that wrist flick in order to hit cleaner, fast shots that they are pushing across the net.

The badminton player seems to utilize a high, arching shot as a part of the strategy to move their opponent around and to hit the back corners of the court.

This shot is far more difficult to execute in pickleball and can result in a highly offensive opportunity for the other team. All this to say, the “lob” in badminton is less risky than in pickleball.

Photo credit: Winnie Tam

This leads me to another observation that the average pickleball rally is much shorter than badminton. Badminton shots overall, seem to be very strategic and show a wide variety.

They can be explosive and aggressive but it’s harder to close out a point. According to my Googling skills, the average doubles match (of 3 games) is around 38 minutes.

From my years of playing pickleball an average competitive game to 11 in pickleball is about 15 minutes, which puts a match of 3 games at roughly 45 minutes. All in all very similar.

I’d actually be really interested in watching the world’s longest (recorded) badminton rally and then the longest pickleball rally. From what I saw, during my friend’s visit, badminton rallies look physically exerting and demanding simply due to the wide variety of shots and the amount of court coverage a team has to do.

Another area I see badminton being translatable if the player can hone in on this specific technique is weight transfer. As already mentioned, weight transfer in badminton is an essential component, however, I was observing players mostly lunging forward.

A tough stance when you’re aiming to keep control of your non-volley line. It would have to take work from the badminton player to re-learn their weight transfer to open up the stance laterally instead.

The wrist flicking in badminton seems to be pretty paramount. My limited knowledge of the game has me deducting that this is due to the fact that players plant and set their feet early on and yet a part of their strategy is to keep the other team guessing.

I noticed that players time their contact point really specifically depending on where and how fast they want to send the birdie back over the net - especially when executing those sneaky drop shots.

Badminton players demonstrate fast hands and lightning reactions. Their overhead smashes are hard to compare against someone coming from another sport. The only other overheads that I see as laser precise without compromising on pace is from a volleyball player.

While tennis players demonstrate a high level of form and technique their overheads are not the strongest compared to a badminton or volleyball player. That’s just my opinion based on the experience I’ve had playing against athletes of all backgrounds. 

Who knew that the third shot makes a vital appearance in badminton?

In both sports, the third shot pretty much determines who is going to be on the offense and who will be on the defense for the rally, although, I will say in pickleball there’s a higher chance of turning a rally around - this is due to the existence of the non-volley zone, the area that neutralizes most players.

In this area, players have to work hard to create their opportunities and must play the ball very strategically.

Photo credit: Winnie Tam

The potential for a player to come from badminton and truly excel in pickleball is high.

Depending on how long this player has been working on their badminton game, the strategies and techniques might be further engrained, however, that said there are so many cross-over skills that with hard work and discipline they should be able to correct some of those nuances.

This article was taken from our 'Control the Kitchen' Newsletter, if you're interested in receiving more content like this, please feel free to sign up using the subscribe section located at the bottom left of this page (or underneath the article if you're on mobile), thanks!