u/estavrionto

Came across this paper on shuttle aerodynamics:
Shuttlecock velocity decay after smash and slice shots in badminton
Eric Collet, 2026
https://doi.org/10.1088/1402-4896/ae5361
A few interesting takeaways:

• Shuttle loses about half its speed every ~3.35 m.
• Some court distances for reference:
  • Back line to Net: ~7 m
  • Short service line to Net: ~2 m
  • Back line to Own short service line: ~5 m
  • Back line to Opponent's short service line: ~9 m
  • Back line to Opponent's back line: ~13 m
• A 500 km/h smash from the back line is already around 250 ~125 km/h at the net, and about 125 ~30 km/h by the opponent's back line.
• Attack: Shows the importance of taking the shuttle early. 
  • A huge smash from the back court is effectively similar to hitting a smash about half as fast from around mid court. Taking it even farther forward (around the service line) is effectively much faster again because the shuttle hasn't had time to bleed off as much speed.
• Defense: Shows the importance of deep lifts.
  • Increasing the shuttle's flight from 10 m to 11.5 m increases the defender's reaction time from about 440 ms to 660 ms (~50% more time). Only 1.5 m farther, but a huge difference.
• Slices (right-handed players): Normal slice gives the shuttle its natural counter-clockwise spin. Reverse slice initially spins it the opposite way. As the shuttle returns to its natural spin, some forward kinetic energy is transferred into rotation. As a result, reverse slices slow down more than normal slices, in addition to the deception.

Interesting seeing actual numbers behind common coaching advice like lift deeper, take the shuttle early, contact the shuttle as high and as far forward as possible etc. The paper also goes into the physics in much more detail, with some interesting graphs on shuttle speed decay, time of flight, slice vs. reverse slice, and feather vs. plastic shuttlecocks.
Edit: corrected some calculation mistakes I made