Laws of Badminton Question: Service

[chris-ccc]

How so? Kids/juniors are taught to serve forehand. How would a fixed height change their approach? Even if they were to prematurely adopt a backhand serve, if the racket needs to be pointed downwards, how would a fixed height (that is higher than their "waist") cause a problem? I help my kids train in their badminton sessions, and can't see any detrimental results to the proposed rule change.

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You have a point there.

I was merely pointing out that kids should pay attention to their waist heights rather than to the suggested white tape on the net for the Service.

I also meant that very tall adults should pay attention to their waist heights and not to the white tape on the net.

But I can see what you mean - that at Service, the point of impact must be below 'X' height.

BWF will need to determine what this 'X' height should be; And after determining this 'X' height, and still insisting that the racket needs to be pointed downwards, then shorter players will suffer a disadvantage during Service (compared to taller players).
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[jjashik]

I am having trouble understanding you. Earlier you said:

I disagree with a uniform serve height as well, just like with most sports, your physical height, strength, speed... etc. makes up how competitive you are. Ok... most asians are short but... they also smash harder, maybe we should put a limit on how hard they're allowed to smash to even it up as well?

Pro players are always on the "edge", they will push the rules as far as they can to gain that edge. Quite frankly I think most pros serve illegally and will continue to do so until a service judge stops them. I really don't care what they got away with in earlier matches, we should not get mad at service judges who actually have the balls to call them on it.

So you are against illegal serves, and agree with service judges who call the faults, right?
So I proposed a rule change that would simplify the current ones and would lead to clarity in play and officiating.

Now you state:

There's always going to be ambiguous rules in any sport but if you put too many rules in then the sport becomes as boring as lawn bowling...

So then, you like these ambiguous rules?

1- There currently ARE rules about the service, which you agree are ambiguous;
2- A fixed height limit would simplify the whole situation;
3- This would REDUCE the length and ambiguity of the current rules.

I would be curious to hear from others, especially with coaching/officiating experience.

[george_palk]

??? Not sure the relevance of what you are stating here. Sure a max service height would feel different for players of different height. But so is the dimensions of the court, the speed of the shuttle...etc. What might be easy for your reach, might be extremely far for your partner. You are not suggesting different court dimensions for different heights, are you? Are you proposing different net heights for different players, like in Volleyball?

i agree with the way you have related the suggested strip on the net with the other dimensions on the court. Yeah, everyone wil serve below that particular line. But, if we go on in this direction, then the challenge of the HUMAN dimensions will be eliminated from the game. May be sometime in the future, someone will suggest something limiting the height from which a player can execute a smash(jump/no jump). Or even worse, you must be less than XYZ cms to play badminton. The human element should be considered, to keep the game more interesting. This is just my humble opinion.

[Andy05]

May be sometime in the future, someone will suggest something limiting the height from which a player can execute a smash(jump/no jump). Or even worse, you must be less than XYZ cms to play badminton. The human element should be considered, to keep the game more interesting. This is just my humble opinion.

I think you may've taken the idea a bit far. It will never reach that stage as the serve is the only shot in the games that in the rules is limited by your physiological characteristics.
But with the number of serves that I saw at the All England and on youtube that should be called a fault I agree there should be some sort of serving height set by the players height. It would prevent people serving totally horizontal, but enforcing that rule is the problem.

[druss]

I am having trouble understanding you. Earlier you said:



So you are against illegal serves, and agree with service judges who call the faults, right?
So I proposed a rule change that would simplify the current ones and would lead to clarity in play and officiating.

What you are suggesting would clarify and make it less ambiguous but would not remove the human element at all. You will STILL NEED a service judge who can make mistakes. Players would still push the boundaries of what they can get away with and some judges will let them and others won't. You WON'T EVER get a uniform level of officiating BECAUSE it still relies on human judgement.

Now you state:


So then, you like these ambiguous rules?

1- There currently ARE rules about the service, which you agree are ambiguous;
2- A fixed height limit would simplify the whole situation;
3- This would REDUCE the length and ambiguity of the current rules.

I would be curious to hear from others, especially with coaching/officiating experience.

Why would you put words in my mouth, just stick to what I've actually written and not what you hear in your head... I don't LIKE ambiguous rules, I say that there will ALWAYS BE ambiguous rules. I am completely against the idea of a fixed height, you're taking a very important part of the game and turning it too uniform. That's like saying tennis players have to serve at a certain height or that only equal height centers can do the toss up in basketball.... TOO MANY RULES STIFLE THE GAME! Trying to put everyone on an even playing field takes out the diversity of each persons physical attributes.

Keep in mind that these rules have developed and changed based on the input of FAR MORE experienced people than us. It was also a consensus vote not just one persons decision. You believe you're right, I believe you're wrong... great, we live in a free society where we can choose to believe what we want to.

This has been a great debate so far but let's not take it too far, nothing we talk about here is ever going to affect the current rules as I doubt any IBF board members come on here very often...