I m wondering how they decide who to serve first in international play. I usually play with throwing the shuttlecock up n which ever direction the cork points towards, that side gets to serve first...how do international players decide?
90% of club player does it your way too, the other 10% done by guessing the cap logo being up or down. International play, i guess by a coin toss. For me the fairest way is whoever wins the call, he or she chooses between serving first OR choose the court side to start the game. If the winner of the call pick court side, the loser side get to choose the serving choice. THis way, the winning call don't get all the advantages, it is more balance. In case other don't know, what is receiving.
cooler, i guess the alcohol is still in your system, eh? i can't make much sense out of your previous message..... anyway. to answer the original question, in international touneys, they use the coin toss. winner get to choose between service or court. the loser takes the other option.
The winner of the toss can choose 1) to serve first 2) to receive serve first 3) an end of the court the other side then gets to choose from the remaining options i.e. If I win the toss and choose an end of the court, the opponents can choose to serve or receive. but in most cases the winner of the toss will choose to serve, which only leaves the opponent with the choice of end.
Neil is right about the choice, it is important that players decide within three options (not two). In practice it is rarely happen that someone is picking to receive. I noticed that some players in doubles find receiving as advantage because after winning the first rally, they have two serves (strange - isn't it?). I am doing some umpiring during international matches and I was umpiring and service-judging several times with top European umpires. According to the rules/suggestions for umpires, the toss should be done in the way that assures that there will be a clear result. Therefore, using shuttle falling down from the net may be confusing and should not be allowed. In practice, most of umpires use coins. I saw some umpires using player's racket (as described in one of the above posts), but I also saw players that didn't like making their rackets falling down on the floor. By the way, may observation is that if you throw the shuttle to the net (not put on the tape to let fall down or spin and fall down) you have around 60% of chance that you win the toss, which makes the toss unfair. Did anybody also noticed this? regards dzgdz
A coin toss is probably the most fair and accurate but in recreational play, this is hardly practical so most of us uses the shuttle by hitting it straight up in the air. I agree with Dzgdz that if you lob the shuttle towards the net, there is a higher probability that the shuttle would bounced and point back to you. In the old days, we used to take the racquet and spin it and then covering the butt cap and stopping the spin. If the logo is face up, then the spinner get to choose, if it is side, then spin again. Then it was on to spinning the racquet and letting it drop on the floor and checking the logo on the butt cap (will always be up or down). This is when we were still using those hardly steel/aluminium frame/shaft racquets. As for choices, there are practically two choices. The serve or receive first are essentially one choice since if you choose one, the other is a given.
If it's just for practice/friendly games, then I suggest you use the shuttlecock. For tournaments, use a coin. I doesn't make much of a difference really since you will also have your turn for service.
