This Crazy Badminton Rally Almost Makes the Sport Watchable

It's only January, but we already have the year's best badminton highlight.

Actually, this play is from 2016, when Japan and Denmark squared off in the Dubai World Superseries Final.

It features Mads Conrad-Petersen and Mads Pieler Kolding against Takeshi Kamura and Keigo Sonoda, which we have no idea is a rivalry on the Manning-Brady level, but it sure looks like they were all on top of their games. In fact, the two Mads showed off some Mads skills, despite the fact they failed to win the point.

The volley is so good that we may have to go ahead and bump this sequence to second place in the rankings of phenomenal badminton plays we've seen, which currently features only these two videos because we have not yet upgraded our cable package to include the Badminton Network.

Badminton may get a bad rap, but it sure can deliver in the excitement department when you get down to it.