I had 2 rather odd incidents today where I'm not sure what should have been done. Basically I was playing doubles and I was serving. The reciever rushed the net and hit a drive right past me, but as I was dodging it so my partner could get it the shuttle brushed off the tip of my hair (like barely enough so I could feel it). Is this a fault? Couldn't find any topics or discussions about it, or rules clarifications. I just know it's a fault if the shuttle touches the person or dress of a player, but I'm not sure if the feathers clipping my hair counts. I just called it as a fault, but it would certainly put people with longer spiky hair at a disadvantage.
At any particular time when the shuttle touches the player, be it the arms, the torso, the hair or the tongue, or just ALL of the player and the racquet, it is deemed a foul. The person who did the contact with the shuttle loses the rally. It doesn't matter if your hair is long or short, it's still considered a contact. Thus you lose the rally. But in the heat of the game sometimes only the person who made the contact would know, and this is when your own sense of fairplay comes into the picture.
It's a fault. No contact other than with racquet is allowed. It used to be only contact with the stringbed and everything else is fault. So, what is the other odd incident?
I got new question. While the shuttle is falling close to the line, if the receiver give it a blow of air, and shuttle landed out, would the umpire call that a fault? It's hard to tell whether the air been blown had really cause the shuttle to go out.
Would depend on the instance of it happening, some people rush at shuttles on the back line to try and force them out but their chances of sucess are quite low since although the shuttle is light it is not easily changed from it's flight path except with a good gust of wind. Have you never tried blowing one of your near miss net shots over if you are right on the net and trying to get it over? Always good for a laugh It would depend on the umpires definition of interference!
Heh! I say throw the book at them! Blowing at the birdie with intent (couldn't get any obvious) is interference.
Try, try again! I would venture to say that this is completely legal unless you happen to spit on the shuttle (or deposit your DNA or any other forensic evidence that CSI could nail you on). I've tried this numerous times (w/o the spit) for shuttles at the top of the net to try to coax them over. Unfortunately, my attempts have never succeeded but I've heard of 1 case where it actually did (but perhaps it's just an urban myth ). Another trick is to take another swipe at the shuttle with your racket w/o actually making contact in the hopes of generating enuff wind to send the shuttle over the net (alas, this has never worked for me either but I keep trying).
About your first question, are you sure that birdy touched your hair? If it dose, the shuttle will almost change direction for sure. Did you check if your hair got knock off by the shuttle? I like your honesty. Regarding you rsecond question, what if you just so happen pass some gas (and it smell) at shuttle while it is going tothe back service line and it went out. I don't think that count as interference. Have a good Monday morning...
