You can’t underestimate the importance of fitness.

There are several angles on fitness:

1) Ability to play.
2) Ability to exceed.
3) Ability to endure.

The first thing that you have to pay attention to is the ability to play. Be very realistic about your physical condition. If you aren’t, chances are, you will injure yourself and you won’t be able to play. Therefore, I consider fitness more important to monitor and remain aware of, even before badminton skills.
When I was first starting out, I did well in badminton just because I could get to more birds because I was fast and had good stamina.
Now that I’m older, I’ve learned that I have to be careful not to overextend myself past what I’m capable of, in order to keep playing. This is tough because I still feel like my old self, but if you love badminton as much as I do, it’s worth the effort.
What I am saying is that you should work on your fitness gradually and continuously so that you don’t hurt yourself by trying to do more than you can and trying to gain fitness too quickly by over-training. This will allow you to continue to play.

The second thing you can pay attention to after the above, is to work on being stronger and faster than others so that you can be use this to your advantage. This unfortunately takes much effort but can be optimized through smart workout plans. I will cover this more in future tricks on this site.

The third thing is to work to be able to work longer than others. Endurance is something that many players ignore. This is usually for two reasons: building endurance takes considerable effort, and because it’s not as flashy as skill shots or sheer speed.
However, it’s something that is more reliable in results than most strategies because it’s so basic. If you work hard to build your endurance, you will simply just win more games because you will be less tired than your opponent as the tough games go on. As I’ve covered in earlier tips, players make more mistakes the more tired they are. I’ve seen excellent players miss the most basic shots when they are tired.

Summary
Be honest with yourself about your fitness level and don’t over do, either in play or in training.
Work to be more fit continuously and gradually.
Use knowledge of your fitness level o your advantage; work to get every shot if you’re fit enough, otherwise conserve energy to go for the more reachable returns. If you think it will work, place shots far away from the other player so that they tire themselves out; even if they make all the early points, they might lose all the later points.

Have a great week of badminton!