Occassionally, I have the opportunity to play casual mix doubles with an elderly woman, who serves using the backhand flick.

From the time she actually start stroking the bird (ie/ in one continuous motion without stopping, bring her racquet back from the shuttle and then forward to stroke the bird), it takes about "2.5 - 3.0 seconds". She does not deviate from this stroke (ie/ one serve is fast and the next one is slow).

Would you consider this as a service fault?

Sometimes, players get so impatient, they actually start moving forward as she start stroking (I know this is illegal for them to move)!!!

Cheers! :D

I'm not sure if this is true, but I remember my old coach telling us that there is a 5 second rule on serving.

I don't think it is a fault as long as it doesn't seem like your racquet is stopping somewhere along the forward path. For example, you can serve high and long underhand in singles, and then serve with a slower stroke and they may think it will be a low serve, and suddenly flick the racquet over them to try and catch them off guard.

Phil

I would say as long as she is not trying to slow the game on purposely (like really slow), I don't think it's a fault. Since the movment is continuous, it is legal.

There is a time ruling but are you going to have a go at an elderly lady because her serve is slow?

As others have posted the serve is legal if it is one long (even painfully slow) movement but the timing issue is the problem not the serve itself.

Originally posted by Dill
There is a time ruling but are you going to have a go at an elderly lady because her serve is slow?... timing issue is the problem not the serve itself.

No, no, no. The elderly lady is usually MY mix partner!

When I play with her, it is pretty casual (for me), but I can see our opponents (usually 2 men) become impatient with the length of time for her to stroke the serve.

She consistently serves the same style & 99.99% of the time will serve to the T.

Yes, the men will attack her serves early but they keep on faulting by moving prior to her contacting the shuttle. I don't know why they don't stand at the front service line to begin with? They stand about a foot & half back then shuffle forward.

To clarify, does taking 2.5-3.0 seconds to stroke the serve a fault? provided eveything else (ie/ continuous motion, racquet head clearly below hand, etc) is proper.

Cheers! :)

I thought you can "pulse" before they contact the shuttle on the serve, as long as your feet remain in the same position and they don't actually take a step...

Originally posted by Break-My-String
To clarify, does taking 2.5-3.0 seconds to stroke the serve a fault? provided eveything else (ie/ continuous motion, racquet head clearly below hand, etc) is proper.

Cheers! :)

No, there is nothing in the IBF rules about this. Talking to experienced umpires and referees, they normally consider anything less than 5 seconds to be good. Any longer, they will most likely call a delay of game penalty.

I don't think so not unless you bring your racket and feather above your waist to serve....

BMS,

You mean it takes her that long to stroke her racquet back and forward?? Like a regular serve in super slow motion??

If so, then I think it's one of those things regarding badminton service that isn't blatantly illegal, but falls into a grey area of whether the umpire views her service technique as an intentional ruse to annoy her opponents by wasting time, or an unique technique.

Personally, I would find such a slow motion serve to be very annoying... especially at a community centre where people are just trying to have fun. "Dammit just serve so we can get the game going!", is probably what everyone is thinking. So although her service might not be totally illegal, she might consider speeding it up somewhat just to prevent pissing off all her fellow players. Or she might find herself left out because no one will want to play with her. Such things happen quite often at VRC :). No one wants to waste their time playing with someone who's going to annoy you on every serve!

Originally posted by timeless
You mean it takes her that long to stroke her racquet back and forward?? Like a regular serve in super slow motion??

YES! She does the backhand flick serve, but she is consistent & aims for the T all the time. She does not vary the speed of her stroke, nor serves anywhere else.

Wow, how annoying! :) There's a lady at VRC that used to have a very similar service, but she would take the entire 5 seconds! Incredibly annoying. However, I played mixed doubles against her last night and she has corrected her service since the last time I played her. Someone must have pointed it out to her. Who ever you are, I applaud you! ;) :D

Well there are two situations here. If you're playing a friendly game, then serving slowly is a fault. Just get the ball in play. Then again, if you're not too good at badminton, even if it is just a friendly game, you don't want to be on the receiving end of a shuttle if you hit a bad serve or if your opponent rushes the net, so you have to keep that in mind.

If it's a league game though, all bets are off. I say do whatever it takes, take as long as it takes if it gives you an advantage.

Particularly with net rushers, I like to vary the time it takes me to serve. If you change rhythm, you give them one less cue to get a jump on your serve.

I love using the serve as an attacking weapon. I know, I know, serving is no great advantage with top level players but I'm not a pro and I don't play pros. Against even good club players however, my serve gets me at least two aces a game and it's nice for me and my partner to think that we only need to play to 13 at most.