Which is the fastest racquet sport?

Badminton is the world's fastest racquet sport. The shuttlecock, made of cork and goose feathers, can whip across the net as fast as 260 kilometres per hour.

Badminton can firmly stake its claim to be the worlds fastest racket sport, with smashes reaching speeds of up to 332 kph. Chinese men's doubles star Fu Haifeng of China set the official world smash record of 332 km/h (206 mph) on June 3, 2005 in the Sudirman Cup in Beijing.

The Badminton World Federation conducted speed trials for the first time at one of its major events, with microwave sensors recording the speed of smashes on the main court at the world mixed team championships. The fastest smash recorded in the singles competition is 305 km/h (189 mph) by Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia. While world number two Kenneth Jonassen of Denmark has recorded the fastest smash for a singles player at 298 kph.

And with womens singles player Huang Sui hitting at 257 km/h, tennis star Andy Roddick's world-record serve of 246 kph is some way off of badminton's blistering pace.

More Info: websites.sportstg.com

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11 Comments

Elsy O. Stromberg

I thought badminton would be the slowest- surprising!

sftcw

A bad and repeated question, with the same wrong answer. First, what does "the fastest game" refers to? The speed of the ball/shuttlecock? If that's the case, badminton absolutely cannot be the fastest game. I play both tennis and badminton extensively (and some squash and racket ball). A tennis ball, hit in an overhead smash or a hard drive forehand or backhand, will travel much much faster than the shuttlecock. I have suffered hits by tennis balls that resulted in black and blue marks on my chest. You can hit a shuttlecock at me 100 time and I would hardly feel hurt (unless it hits my eyes). Such a silly and wrong question.

Denny Quigley

Believe it. In the lab in perfect conditions they have clocked speeds up to 500 kph. It is quite typical to have 250 kph smashes in a professional game. Consider also that the court is only 60 feet long. So it comes twice as fast as a fastball on 2/3 the distance.

lls

Elsy O. Stromberg, Me, too!

Stevie G

Jay Hendrickson, I have no doubt that what you say is true but it is not a racquet sport.

Fred Keogh

Surely the shuttlecock when smashed only travels a short(ish) distance. A squash ball is hit and maintains its fast speed just about until it is returned? Just a thought.