I had a question about service judging at professional events that's bothering me a bit. First, some disclaimers, I've never done any service judging myself, and I'm basing my opinions only on matches I've watched in videos, not in person. It appears to me that quite a few doubles players have illegal serves. If I remember the approximate wording of the rule, the shuttle had to be struck below the waist, and the racket head had to be below the service hand. Also, I believe that there was a recent rule amendment to define the waist as the lowest point of the rib cage, which in my opinion is both wrong and not clear in any event. I'd be happy with someone correcting me on the rules as to what constitutes a legal serve. Anyway, the first player that comes to mind is Yap Kim Hock (Cheah Soon Kit's old partner). Based on the videos I've seen, I don't believe he hit a single legal serve in his life, with the shuttle usually being struck somewhere around the level of the middle of his chest. I think he was being given some leeway since he was so short that it didn't constitute an advantage. Among players nowadays, Lee Yong Dae seems to always be doing an illegal serve. In the last match I watched, it wasn't even close and he was only called for one service fault. I should note that he's not the only one, and that illegal (too high) serves seem to be fairly prevalent among today's professional doubles players. The thing is, consistently doing an illegal serve and getting away with it can be a large advantage in doubles, considering how important the serve and return is in getting the attack. So am I just mistaken in my interpretation, or has anybody else noticed this trend among professional doubles players?
No different from any other sport in my opinion - players will push it to the limit for any advantage. I actually think illegal serves are more of a problem in amateur/casual players where there's no-one else to make the call... and it forces the opponent to have to say something, which many will tend to avoid. anyway, back to your point - contact below the lowest rib, and shaft has to be pointing in a downward direction. IIRC the requirement for racket head to be beneath hand was removed. Just watched a couple of videos of Lee Yong Dae and don't see anything wrong with his serve. Unlike many players he seems to drop the shuttle before contact rather than hit it from the hand.
In my opinion, all top doubles players doing an illegal serve. The problem is that none of the umpire has the gut to fault them. BWF has to redefine the service rule eg. as long under the top edge of the net which most player seem doing it. The present rule is very hard to define or see where someone rib is and tall player/short player have very different waist line height. This is my suggestion for service rule, move the service line back by another 20cm, any part of the racket must be below the top edge of the net.
Yeh its no longer below the waist. Lowest rib is the mark which is significantly higher than the waist. Either way its hard to accurately judge it accordingly.
totally disagree with mhigham, Lee yong dae serves are legal? It's either you're his fan or you're mistaken him tall as a 7 footer. I would say almost 100 percent of his serves are illegal. he does have his arm bend and downward a little. YES A LITTLE only, but that's not downward enough to be the LOWEST rib bone. Now a day I only see service judges call on those motion of the hand that holding the bird move forward while the racquet contact the bird. Like the motion of using ur hand just simply throw over the bird.
easy there soldier..... I said quite clearly that I watched a few videos, meaning about 10 serves in total, none of which were illegal. So clearly your assertion of almost 100% of serves being illegal is a silly one. If you are in any doubt about this I'll link the videos and the individual serves when I get home this evening.
It seems that quite a few players are confused about the meaning of "waist". Your waist is not the level of your shorts, or your hips. Your waist is the narrow part of your abdomen between the ribs and hips (source). (Well, it's not narrow on everyone -- only on slim people. ) Of course, this definition describes an area on the body. For the purpose of specifying an exact height, the Laws define the waist to be a line level with the lowest part of the ribs. As a guide, service judges use the free-hanging height of the elbow to decide where the waist is.
Waist/Elbow Mike do you have a source for this? I have wanted to call some players for their serves for ages now but have never dared do it, this would make it pretty clear cut.
It was in one of the BE magazines -- either "Badminton" (the players' mag) or "Power & Precision" (for coaches). It was an "ask the service judge" column, or something similar. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have kept that piece, so I can't say which edition. No doubt a trip to The Bod would unearth it, as they pretty much have a copy of everything, but that's probably overkill even for me. Still, maybe at some point I'll make a research trip with a longer shopping list, and hunt it down then. If nothing else, a systematic plundering of the archives will probably be useful for me one day. Alternatively, one could find out by more direct means. But I want an excuse to visit The Bod...
Makes sense to me, that's about where I've generally found the bottome of the rib cage in figure drawing classes.
i must say I believe most of the top rank players serves are illegal, i.e. LYD, KKK, TBH, CY, FHF etc... I think Tony Gunawan's ok. It puzzle me when the umpire call for fault serves when in actual fact, there are consistently illegal through out the game... p/s: it reminded me what happened to Serena Williams in last US open final...
Mostly was just agreeing with the idea of the free hanging elbow as a reference point but w/e. I think I'd first have to point out that it's probably a lot harder to make those calls on court as opposed to on a tv/pc screen. I'd assume (anyone else who knows better please clarify) that they probably have a slight margin for error as well since it's prolly kinda hard to tell at a distance when the shuttlecock is making contact a couple cm above the waist <.<
other than the service judge's opinion about the below the elbow.. i wanna add that the racket should be angled downward at least 30 degrees during contact of shuttle on service.
This isn't in the Laws. The racket only has to be pointing in "a downwards direction", which means "anything below horizontal".
I think most people can tell the difference between horizontal and not horizontal. As with height of contact, I think the players will be given a little bit of leeway as the advantage is marginal at best.
