What's Better: Badminton vs. Tennis

Without starting an argument about what's better, let me quell that thought right now. The title itself is to invite you to explore these two great sports and discuss some of the similarities and differences between the two without getting too heated! 

Tennis was my first love, a fantastic sport by all accounts to get you out of the house, to meet new people as well as to expose you to team environments.

Until I was around 15 years old, I thought badminton was just a backyard sport. More recently, I was introduced to a fresh perspective that as badminton players, we should celebrate the fact that a lot of people already have that initial connection to badminton and I am trying to re-wire my brain to think in that way! 

To be honest though, at the time, I had no idea what badminton was really about. If you also don't know what badminton is REALLY about, I encourage you to watch the video below to get a glimpse of reality: 

I wont waste too much of your time with detail and keep it super simple, below are some of the key differences between the sport. 

• Tennis involves consistent running, mostly laterally (from side to side) where as badminton is a stop-start sport (moving radially or in all directions)
  Note: This is not to say that you don't move forward and back in tennis as well, but generally speaking, there is a lot of lateral movements.
• The tennis ball (57.7 and 58.5 grams) and the shuttlecock (4.75 to 5.50 g) are two very different things to be hitting around with a racquet!
• What you hit them with are also very different: Tennis racquets typically sits between 255 to 365g and badminton racquets typically fall within 80 to 100g
• In tennis, the ball is allowed to hit the ground once whereas the shuttlecock hitting the ground in badminton means you lose the point 
• The court - it goes without saying that the tennis court is much larger than a badminton court but what's interesting is that the distance covered by an athlete between the two sports in matches are similar 
• Badminton is the fastest racquet sport in the world (493 km/hr in badminton vs 263 km/hr in tennis)
• Earning potential: If you're playing racquet sports for a living, then tennis (£2,350,000 Wimbledon Winner in Singles) is where the money's at compared to badminton ($125,000 World Championships Winner in Singles)
• Badminton has a much stronger focus on wrist strength/power, which if used in tennis would really hurt after a while! 

There you have it! Some (not all) of the key differences between tennis and badminton.

What we've found in the badminton community is that, like myself, there are many tennis turned badminton players but it's much more rare to see it the other way around.

However, recently Jeff and I had the opportunity to chat to Ernest Ng. He’s passionate about all racquet sports, and it all started with badminton. While he still loves the sport, he decided to try tennis and tells us his story about the transition between the sports and what he’s learnt along the way which relate to sport, career and life.

He works full time at Kayo / Fox Sports in Sydney, Australia – which he describes as a dream job for any athlete.

Check out the episode here: 

Let us know what you think and be sure to tune into our other episodes on your favourite podcast platform: Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Breaker, Anchor, Overcast, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Player FM. Just search for "The Badminton Podcast".

Or you can visit: www.anchor.fm/thebadmintonpodcast and get direct links for your preferred platform.

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Main Image Source: Sport Ten
Body Video Source: Madminton (Youtube) 
Body Image Source 1: Playo