Risk taking in badminton to optimize in-the-run performance

In tennis the serve can be a most powerful weapon. However in badminton, the serve holds a much lower advantage in comparison to tennis, and for many players, yields a net disadvantage. Badminton¿s most common service used is a short serve requiring accuracy, as opposed to a long serve requiring power. This is because badminton does not allow for the advantage of a second serve on fault of the first, someway explaining the conservative nature of serving, and low success probabilities. The short serve allows the receiver to gain the advantage, putting the server under pressure on the third shot. In this work, we develop a model to ascertain whether a player should be taking a high or low risk serve. Using Bayesian models, we hypothesize how a player¿s performance could be optimized conditional on the state of the match in progress. Practical implications for players are discussed, given that the rules of badminton allow for coach intervention during a match in progress.