Hi all, Is it allowed to raise racket for blocking the net kill? Ex: I played the net kill, my friend raised the racket. The shuttle bounced back to my court.
By law your friend firstly cannot block your follow thru stroke if you so decide to clash rackets with him. And secondly, your friend must hit the bird with a stroke, ie not just block with a static racket. But in social games, without an umpire present, you really can't apply these rules effectively.
Blocks being forbidden and a stroke being necessary is an often-repeated myth. In fact, it's so common that it was explictly addressed in my umpire's seminar. There is no such rule. The only applicable rule in this situation is: §13.3.4 It shall be a fault if, in play, a player obstructs an opponent, i.e. prevents an opponent from making a legal stroke where the shuttle is followed over the net If you could not play the kill shot as you wanted to avoid a clash of rackets, your opponent has commited a fault, and the rally ends right there. But it sounds like you played the kill shot just fine. In that case, the game continues, and if you are unable to return the shuttle that bounced back into your court, that's a point for the opponent.
What about in the Japan Open when Lee Chong Wei was playing Kenichi Tago (I think) and Kenichi Tago blocked the shuttle sort of unintentionally and LCW won the point?
Also, this happened during LCW's match against Chen Long at this year's All Englands. Wasn't called fault.
this happens very often when LCW is involved. Sometimes it is committed by him and sometimes against him.
Amleto, from your answer it seems there must be some standard measured 'distance' in the badminton law for one to call fault which i don't think i ever read it. Could you justify?
Rob3rt, normally umpires wont. I think But if they call, i believe it is because the other is raising his/her racket over the net and that is a fault!
No fixed rule. It's up to the umpire to judge whether one player obstructed the other players stroke or not. Yes, this rule is ambigous! Like many others in many sports...;-)
You can't charge someone with murder if no one died. Basically, you have to swing your racket in your follow-through to make contact with your opponent's racket to establish the fact that you were obstructed by your opponent. Otherwise, no harm, no fault. Morten Frost made the point quite clearly in his commentary.
If that were the case (and it's not, because faults have been given without contact) that would be a very irresponsible rule(having to make contact). In answer to the OP there is a rule that states you can not impede a follow through, sadly nobody knows how to apply it. There is no pattern that can be drawn from when it is called or not by umpires and the rule itself is in no way specific enough for an answer to be given. [MENTION=24009]Footwork[/MENTION] I can only think of blocking in squash(not even as ambiguous) but I am struggling with any other sports rules as ambiguous as this one. This rule is applied so inconsistently it is pointless
Without any doubt: This rule is ambiguous! A lot of judgement involved on the side of the umpire. Everyone judges certain situations in one way or the other, some situations might not even be clear in slomo. The question is: Is this rule in any way critical/detrimental for the sport itself? I think it isn't! It's a rule that is very rarely needed (how often do we see such points? Once every 10 matches? How many of them are judges correctly? 80%? Makes one wrong decision every 50 matches or so (numbers are random, but you guys got my point!?)). It's nothing we should care about! Just to give another example of ambiguous rules: Soccer. What constitutes a "foul" is never clear. It can't be defined perfectly. Some refs are more strict, others let the players almost kill themselfes. How many wrong decisions do we have per game? 3? 5? 10? I think the net-blocking rule is not perfect, but good enough. And I've yet to see a better alternative...
Not to bring up another ambiguous rule or two, like the service and receiver fault rules, but when there're several combined perceived erroneous judgment calls in a game that are perceived erroneous by players and spectators, then that really throws fairness in the sport out the window.