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Left-handed badminton players could have a slight advantage thanks to the shape of the shuttlecock, a physicist has discovered, although as there seems to be no significant difference in their overall chance of winning, they may have disadvantages elsewhere.
Professional badminton players use feather shuttlecocks, which are usually made from about 16 overlapping goose or duck feathers inserted into a cork base. This overlapping introduces an asymmetry that means a shuttlecock naturally spins anticlockwise as it flies through the air, unlike a tennis ball, which will spin in either direction.
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To study if this anticlockwise spin affects left and right-handed players differently, at the University of Rennes in France recorded and analysed videos of three left-handed and three right-handed people playing badminton. He found a key difference in the players鈥� forehand slice shots, a common move where the racket brushes the shuttlecock to change its angle of travel.
For right-handers, playing this shot made the shuttlecock spin even faster in the anticlockwise direction. Meanwhile, left-handed players strike from the opposite side, which makes the shuttlecock spin clockwise instead.
鈥淭he shuttlecock is rotating the opposite direction, then stops spinning and starts rotating around its natural rotation axis again,鈥� says Collet. 鈥淭his process means the shuttlecock is slowed down rapidly by the air.鈥�
This loss of speed means that the shuttlecock falls much quicker and therefore follows a path that is around 15 degrees steeper than the same shot from a right-handed player. The faster drop and slightly more vertical route of the shuttlecock means that it lands closer to the net, so the opposing player needs to travel a bit further and stoop lower to defend the shot, giving left-handers an advantage, says Collet.
鈥淧eople knew that left-handed players have a good slice,鈥� he says. 鈥淣ow we know why.鈥�
There is no significant difference in the number of left-handed and right-handed winners of professional badminton matches though. This implies that right-handed players may have adapted the left-handed slice shot or have advantages elsewhere in the sport.
Although this study looked at feather shuttlecocks, if a plastic shuttlecock has the same asymmetry, then the effect will appear with it too, says Collet.
鈥淚 find this very interesting,鈥� says at the Catholic University of the West in France. 鈥淭he study highlights the slice, but we might expect similar, reverse results for the right-hander and left-hander in a backhand slice.鈥�
arXiv
