One of guys on our team was telling me he once knew someone who would do a serve around the netpost. He was very tall and would stand right at the front far right of the service box and aim for the back T with the serve travelling very fast and low to the ground! Would this be legal? Maybe I'll give it a shot!
Assuming the arms are that long to get this insane angle to the back T, it is a tactically suicidal move. Pick up Chapter 6 of Jake Downey's Winning Badminton Doubles and you'll see why. When you serve wide to the back T, the receiving player will obviously know what you are trying to do. A quick jump back, and then the player has two options. 1) A round the head shot to place the shot down the middle where there's a huge gap right now. The server is still standing on the extreme right side. If you hit it down and way to the back, the server's partner will be forced to hit a defensive shot up in a rush. The next shot for your team will likely be a midcourt kill. 2) The receiving player steps back and to the right, and using a backhand drop to the cross court side or to the middle. Regardless of which serving team player who gets the return, they will have to do a full defensive clear as it was tight to the net. (I'm assuming your partner was smart enough to jump to the front when he saw the serve was not low and to the back T). Your team's now setup in an attacking formation and you have the advantage. Bottom line, serving high and doing these "funky" serves don't work in middle level to high level badminton doubles. You can get away with some of this in very low level play, and this positive reinforcement is likely why people continue doing it. As soon as you understand the development of shots that result from such a serve, you'll understand that it's a very bad move and places your serving team at an immediate disadvantage. Grab the Jake Downey book. Guarantee you'll enjoy it. Many here on BF will have read it before and can vouch for it's sound analysis.
yeah, i didnt comment on the value of these type of serve. I see these serves only been used by players from level C or lower players. It's dumb because u leave only 1 player (ur partner) to defend the whole court from the start of the rally, ur opponent's dream.
Last game I played with badrad, he used it Of course we had a 13-yr old kid, and a beginner for partners ... to be complete. I didn't want to "Jack Downey" him, cause badrad would've carved me up ROYALLY! -dave
Law 9.1.8 says the flight of the shuttle shall be upwards from the server's racket to pass over the net so that, if not intercepted, it lands in the receiver's service court so it would appear that serving around the post is a fault.
Good job Neil! I was just going to say that it sure sounds illegal because how could you tell the shuttle was going higher than the net? Heck if the person was as a tall as Shaq or Yao, they could probably hit the shuttle behind the head of the service judge too *LOL*.
So if someone's tall enought that his waist is above the net, and he serves down on the court, that would be a fault? wow lol, eventhought i really doubt anyone can do that =p
make sense. I think it is allowed to serve standing outside the boundary lines but the shuttle, as per bylaw, still have to fly over the actual net, not an imaginary line extrapolated from the net.
nope. 9.1.2 the server and receiver shall stand within diagonally opposite service courts without touching the boundary lines of these service courts the shuttle could be outside the boundary lines when it is struck though.
