NEW: Fixed Height Experiment for Service

Discussion in 'Rules / Tournament Regulation / Officiating' started by CantSmashThis, Jan 10, 2013.

  1. Master

    Master Regular Member

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    Citated from FAQs - Enhancing Badminton's Future (posted here)

    PDF page 6 : Service-Law Changes

    • Is the new service law better than the existing law?

    Yes, we are confident it is. The existing law has been under criticism for many years and the application of the service rule has been one of badminton’s most complex aspects.

    BWF accepts the new Fixed-Height Service rule does create some complexities especially in relation to junior badminton players where the height of the players in certain age groups would dictate that other rules should be used.

    For the highest level of international players, BWF is confident these players will adapt and the rules provide a framework where all players can serve from the same height – and where shorter players are not unreasonably disadvantaged regarding the service rules.

    The Fixed-Height Service also finally presents the possibility for BWF to start developing technology solutions to manage the service rules. This option is not available under the existing service regulations.


    • Why do we want to change the service laws?

    The proposal originated from the Badminton Association of Malaysia at our AGM in 2017. BWF held several discussions on the potential simplification of the service laws, including a gathering of top international coaches who supported a simplification of the laws and a standard height for service. Over the years, players, coaches and officials have expressed dissatisfaction with the current laws which are complex, applied inconsistently and not fully understood by the public. The rationale behind the proposed new regulation is to simplify the laws to allow a more consistent and fair application for players of all heights. It is interesting to note that only players above the height of approximately 180/185cm will need to adjust their service in a downwards direction. In effect, this means players above that height have had a considerable advantage on service until now.

    First indications from events in the trial period show that players have adapted well to the test regulations and play has not been disrupted as much as some expected.


    • How did we decide on the fixed-height recommendation?

    Tests were carried out with international players to establish the height that would be used during the trial period. Initially the service height was set at 1.10 metres, but through tests the height was adjusted to 1.15 metres. BWF is testing to determine if this height is fine or needs to be adjusted further. It has been suggested the height could be set closer to 1.20 metres. All indications therefore lead to an assessment that the “correct” height is between 1.15 – 1.20 metres and tests in the months to come will provide more insight into this.


    • Is the fixed-height rule fair to all players?

    Only players above the height range of 180/185cm will need to adjust their service height in a downward direction. The fixed-height service rule will however allow shorter players to serve at the same height as taller players – with the net height being the same for all players, BWF feels it can be reasonably argued that a fixed-height service for all is a much better principle. Although the service height for many years has allowed taller players to serve at a higher level, BWF has carefully considered the rule and determined a change was necessary to make the rule fairer for all players.

    Very tall players will likely have to lower the serve, but will not have an advantage to be able to deliver a serve from a higher point closer to the net tape – which is a considerable advantage that cannot necessarily be considered fair to all players. Early indications from top events in the trial period indicate that players have adapted well, service judges are more consistent, and play has not been terribly disrupted. BWF will keep on monitoring the development and it is too early to say how much improvement will be gained in consistency in umpiring from these rules, but the prospects and potential around the rule is clear and provide much better opportunity to improve service rules in the future.


    • Could the existing regulations (service laws) not achieve the same by being implemented more consistently?

    It is being argued that the existing rules could be implemented more firmly by service judges and that no change is therefore needed. There are however significant advantages around the fixed-height service rules:
    • A fixed-height service is clearer and more accurate for all players and judges. The position of the lowest rib is different from one player to the other and does not provide players or judges with a precise measure or point on the correct service height – simply as the lowest rib is not visible for anyone under the players’ clothing.
    • A fixed-height service allows introduction of tools to assist service judges with assessing the serve. BWF has developed a tool to help the judges and the feedback is that this tool does improve the possibility for the service judges to call the serves more consistently. This will have to be further documented through the tests in the months to come and BWF is also looking into how the tool can be further improved.
    • BWF accepts that the fixed-height service regulations will likely develop and become more mature in the future, thereby allowing a potential development of more technology-driven solutions to judge the serve – whereas a floating service height makes it difficult to introduce such technology. This technology could determine if a serve is a fault or permit a camera-review system for players to challenge serves. Such solutions would require more research and investment, but would be looked into further if the fixed-height service laws are accepted.

    • Taking away the regulation that the racket needs to be pointing in a downwards direction, would this not lead to more flat flick serves that would disrupt the game?

    BWF is closely monitoring how the serve is delivered under the new regulations, especially the flat flick serves that we seek to avoid.

    The rule that the racket needs to be pointing in a downwards direction is one of the rules that can be very difficult to judge, as the serve motion is very fast and can be difficult to judge consistently. With a service height being clearly under the height of the net, it is however more difficult to deliver a flick serve in a very flat way. This is being closely monitored and it is therefore also part of the Council proposal that Council can get the permission from the BWF membership to reintroduce the regulation around the racket pointing downwards if the testing period proves this necessary.

    BWF seeks this permission from the membership to make sure a more permanent rule can be decided by latest December 2018 to be in place well in advance of the start of the Olympic Qualification Period.


    • How will the new laws be implemented at national and domestic levels?


    As with the scoring changes, member associations will have flexibility to decide how and when to implement and at which levels. The current service rules will be retained as an alternative service law in the “Alternative Laws of Badminton” and may be used at entry-level badminton as decided by member associations. Clearly there is a need to make adaptions for younger and smaller players, as well as these new rules not being applicable for wheelchair players in para-badminton.

    Although there are often no designated service judges at domestic level, this is no different to the current application of the laws, and a simple mark on the net or posts will at least give some indication whereas currently with the floating height rule this is impossible.
     
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  2. pcll99

    pcll99 Regular Member

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    I have a prediction to make.

    Three years from now, smartphones or tablets will make service fault calls.

    And I think Samsung is more likely than Apple, probably.
     
    #542 pcll99, May 12, 2018
    Last edited: May 12, 2018
  3. Littlejohn

    Littlejohn Regular Member

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    Im all for making the game fairer but struggle with the argument that it is unfair under the old rule that tall players can serve from a higher point tham small players, surely then, in terms of fairness BWF must also look at the point that tall players can get a steeper smash angle than small players, that some players have to take more steps to cover a court than others even that some players have more of a natural ability for stroke deception. Why not just accept that some players are better and have an advantage in various elements of the game. Im not saying that action shouldnt be taken to provide compliance with service or other rules....just that it seems a strange argument to say its unfair if somebody has a natural advantage
     
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  4. phihag

    phihag Regular Member

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    I'm not sure I understand your argument: You start by arguing that you want to have players of different height to have the same chances to win a game, but end with saying that some advantages (presumably including perfect height) are desired!?

    I see nothing "natural" about some players being allowed to serve from a higher position than others.

    In order to find out whether there height is an advantage, I looked up some data points:
    In Men's doubles (arguably the discipline where the serve is most important), the average height of the top 10 Danish Men's Doubles players is 187.8cm. By the most recent data I could find, the average Danish male is 180.4cm.
    I couldn't find data for all of them, but the top 10 Chinese Men's doubles players are on average 184.3cm tall, and Wikipedia lists Chinese population averages (depending on whether you want to exclude the rural population, which seems sensible for Badminton) between 167 and 175cm.

    So by this random and probably non-representative sample, the total bias in Men's doubles seems strongly in favor of tall players.
     
  5. Littlejohn

    Littlejohn Regular Member

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    Perhaps I didnt express myself very well, which would be no surprise, the point I was trying to make is simply that if one of BWFs arguments is trying to equalise the advantage taller players have in one element of the game (the serve) then there is no real reason why that reasoning should not be applied to all elements. basically I was playing devils advocate in challenging that one aspect
     
  6. phihag

    phihag Regular Member

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    Can you elaborate why that is the case? At first sight, this looks like an application of the perfect solution fallacy to me: Just because the game is still favoring tall players even after the rule change, why should all elements be changed?

    Every change that could improve fairness must be balanced against its costs, in complexity of learning/watching/playing the sport, of officiating, of potential unintended consequences, and of the PR, rule change, retraining, and other costs of the change itself (in programming, we'd say every feature starts at -100 points).

    Lacking the data, it is also feasible constant service height laws have restored the fairness, or even made it better to be smaller. Unfortunately, the earliest we can know is 10+ years after the law has been changed: The players reaching their prime in the next years will still have been selected by coaches, clubs, and federations according the results of matches with variable service height.

    In any case, it seems to me that fairness was not the primary motivation of BWF for changing to a constant service height; reducing fan/player complaints by making the rule more objective, and making the rule simpler to understand for new players/spectators were the main drivers. It just happened that the constant height service rule also led to a fairer game.
     
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  7. Slade

    Slade Regular Member

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    Also there is no realistic "solution" to height advantages in other aspects of the game but there is one for the service advantage.
     
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  8. xiaoqiao

    xiaoqiao Regular Member

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    Refer to the earlier pages on this debate (for the complete smackdown!) where this argument has been refuted. Discrimination of ability vs discrimination of height.
     
  9. Dimo

    Dimo Regular Member

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    What we have here is a drive serve. I and many others could already do this fairly effectively under the former service rules (though it must be said that quite a few folks' drive serves were actually faults - but try telling that to an opponent!). Anyway, by removing the law of the racket head needing to face downward and below the hand, drive serving becomes easier and I'm not convinced the new blanket height regulations are the answer. Just my two cents...
     
  10. samkool

    samkool Regular Member

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    the new height limit is 0.374m (14.73") below the net height. pretty easy for a service judge to call and recreational players to notice.

    i put tape on my net poles @ 1.15m from the floor. i make all players stand next to it at the beginning of a match so everybody on court can see where it measures on everyone else's body. this alleviates 99% of the complaining.

    why are people making this so unnecessarily complicated?
     
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  11. Ronster

    Ronster Regular Member

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    Wait...so the only rule taking effect now is the height limit of 1.15m? or are they just discussing removing the downward pointing rule?
     
  12. phihag

    phihag Regular Member

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    The current experiment - and BWF's suggestion - is removing the downward pointing rule and requiring the shuttle to be below 1.15m.

    BWF also wants to have the option to reinstitute the downward pointing rule, among others. BWF wants the option because the laws must be fixed before the AGM 2019, because that's the start of the qualification period for the Tokyo Olympics 2020. During an Olympic qualification period, the rules cannot be changed.
     
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  13. Dimo

    Dimo Regular Member

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    The racket pointing downward rule is currently removed. This means a server could (if so inclined) stand a little further back, toss a shuttle into the air and as it falls the requisite height give it a very hard whack with a flat, forehand drive. :D Or am I missing something (aside from the tube of shuttles from Amazon that never turned up)?
     
  14. Ronster

    Ronster Regular Member

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    That could easily go out hahaha. I guess drive serves will get easier to pull off if you can have the racket flat or pointed slightly upwards
     
  15. CantSmashThis

    CantSmashThis Regular Member

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    As stated in the other topic, the MAs have voted 177/222 at the AGM in favor of keeping the new service rules. It will stay in experimental mode until December, with possible variations (ie change to 1.2m) and then BWF Council will then have the power to make a decision regarding the fixed service height.
     
  16. ant01

    ant01 Regular Member

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    I thought that with the new rules it doesn't matter if your racket is pointing up/down. It's a strange call by the service judge, but initially it seems that Endo is called for pointing the racket up. What do you think about this?

     
  17. phihag

    phihag Regular Member

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    Can you post a screenshot or video excerpt? Unfortunately, that video is blocked in the US and in Germany, among many other nations (including China, Japan, Malaysia, Denmark, Indonesia, Philippines, India ...).
     
    #557 phihag, May 24, 2018
    Last edited: May 24, 2018
  18. phihag

    phihag Regular Member

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    With the help of a French proxy, I managed to get the video. The service judge is signalling a fault per §9.1.2 or §9.1.8:
    upload_2018-5-25_2-11-13.png
    From the video I do not see the error - this looks like a perfectly legal and simple serve to me.

    Unfortunately, the replay is useless since it just shows the end of the serve, which is not the point here.
     
    #558 phihag, May 24, 2018
    Last edited: May 24, 2018
  19. Slade

    Slade Regular Member

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    I thought I heard him call "double motion".
     
  20. phihag

    phihag Regular Member

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    Yes, but that is the umpire translating the service judge's hand signal into a formal announcement. When this signal is shown, the umpire always says the same thing. After all, the umpire focused on the receiver during the service and thus is unlikely to see what the fault was.

    By the way, per §4.4 of the vocabulary, the correct announcement here is Service fault called, continuous motion. Since this service fault is really rare and the vocabulary is quite new, this was probably this umpire's first time of the fault. I for one applied to a small international youth tournament in two weeks and have yet to memorize all of the new vocabulary.

    In this case, the policy that players always talk to the umpire (which Hiroyuki Endo, to his credit, does) has its downsides, as the umpire cannot explain any further what the fault was.

    On further rewatching, it seems about a second before the real serve, Endo's racket wobbles a little bit, twice going a couple of centimeters towards the shuttle. The video perspective is horrendous though, and the replay, with good perspective, starts after this happens.

    But judging from what I can see with slow motion from the other side of the hall, the fault call is justified and correct.
     
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