Good generalisation. If you care so much, say something. It's not like the vast majority of club players have a good (tight) serve anyway. Oops, I generalised as well.
Nope. Haven't seen a single one this season, last season maybe one but that's it. I don't care about it because my serves are way better (and legal!)
In my very ordinary club, the great majority of serves are perfectly legal. Not all great but legal. The interesting question is whom do you correct and whom do you leave in ignorance? Most people who are looking to improve their game should appreciate being called on anything illegal. On the odd occasion when one of my flick serves actually fools someone, I ask if they felt it was legal. Because I want to know. But is it really worth it to correct a person who has not improved in decades, and whose only pride is their "effective" illegal serve from chin-height? Let that dog have its bone!
I see a lot of illegal serves at the club level. I also see a lot of suspicious line calls and taking of the shuttle over the net... who cares, it's club level. Most of the time I don't even know the score, I let other players worry about that. It's only purpose for me is to tell me when the match is finished.
Rarely i find some players doing illegal serves. When I do face them, and if they cause difficulties in the game then, I just tell myself that if I were so good, this shouldn't be a problem. so, lets try harder to win this game since it is more challenging.
What Thunder said. I play at 2 clubs (recreational and competitive) and the serves some people produce in the first of the two is sometimes hilarious. Ranging from shoulder height to taking a small run-up before striking the shuttle. It all depends on the club and what people expect of their badminton session. I only point the issues out to people who will learn from it. Some people just keep going and ignore what you say.
For this, I would blame the absolutely illogical service rules. It beats me how one is to determine, on a badminton court, the position of anyone's lowest rib. How does a service judge locate someone's waist based on the rib he can't see? Doesn't all this mean that, every time a service happens, the service judge is making a guess? And, well, what sort of guess is he/she supposed to make? Is it to be a wild guess, an educated guess, a random guess, a legal guess, an indifferent guess, a biased guess, what? I'll stop here since my frustration is begging to be allowed to bite
I think that you can estimate pretty well where the lowest rib is. This rule may seem illogical but how else are you going to dertermine where you are allowed to hit the shuttle and where not?
Personally, I haven't had a problem with anyone's serve for years now. There are 2 (possibly 3) members at my current club whose action creeps upwards from time to time. It is neither deliberate nor particularly effective, so I'm inclined to agree with Fidget & let sleeping dogs lie.
It comes down to the goals of a player. Yours may be to have serious games and play hard. SHOULD that be the goal of everyone else in the club? The serve may be illegal but a person will not change unless they want to change. That is dependent on what they want out of playing at the club. It may be to get better as a competitive player, or to get fit and have fun. Joining a different club where your goals fit more accurately to the goals of other players may suit better for you. That is not to say they should not change their serve but generally unless you play competitively in circuit tournaments, a player may be classified as recreational? People do not have to follow all of the rules. There are players who still play the old-style 15 points with first and second servers at individual clubs. But their goals are not to be competitive, they are to enjoy the game.
As an umpire/service judge, I usually never call anyone on a service fault unless they literally drive it to my face where it's near impossible to return. But some players still think that it's totally legal. Other than that, I usually don't tend to go up to anyone and tell them their service is illegal when it is. It's club play. If they want to know if it's illegal, they will go up to ask me anyways. Most club players over here don't play at high enough level tournaments where there are umpires/service judges anyways.
generalization 2.0 (by my experiience): the higher leagues you play in, the more illegal serves you see! reason: people try to gain little advantages by serving illegal (or at least suspicious)... in lower leagues, this is not necessary, as skill differences between players are not based on little advantages, but bigger ones... this changes of course on worldclass-level as there are service judges...
