Thanks! That clears up a lot. I had read about the change to only 60 second breaks between games. But what is going on with this time-out thing! That is pretty weird for badminton! One 120 second timeout during the first four games per player/pair, and one timeout per player/pair in the fifth? That can be a long fifth, and very tactical breaks, like people use the challenges now sometimes. I'm not sure how this will work out.
That's a whole different story, fully agree. I think the reason why they even come up with timeouts was that coaching between rallies would have been forbidden. But yeah, I can see why this topic might cause a lot of discussions (just look at the following posts and pages of that old thread...) and honestly, I don't have a real opinion on that yet myself. I can see the point of forbidding or reducing that non-stop coaching that we see between almost every rally. Tactical awareness of the players themselves would become a lot more important which would add another interesting twist to the matches.
Yeah I like that they can't coach between the rallies (edit: intervals would be fine for me). But the extra timeouts in the fifth may make a fifth a bit chaotic like this: 5-3 challenge (20s) 6-4 switch ends (no break, but is still a small mental break 30s) 8-7 challenge (20s) 9-7 time out (120s) 10-9 challenge (20s) 10-10 timeout (120s) 12-11 challenge (20s) 13-11 Almost more breaks than playtime. Edit: Oh I didn't even include towel down and mop requests! edit: formatting and break times
That just shifts the responsibility of that awareness to the athlete, it's still part of the game. I would guess it's too reduce the breaks between rallies and I would really like that, I just don't think it will work that way.
The umpire already has discretion over breaks, and I think tactical responsibility should be on the players' shoulders alone. I was watching a 2002 match yesterday (AE MDF, I think) and what struck me most was not the pace of the rallies, but the pace of the play - one point went to the next with almost no dithering or gamesmanship. Badminton is going the way of tennis - players towelling down after a frigging aced serve?! Come on.
I get it, where comes the idea to get rid of coaches and may be it is a good idea. Myself, I do like watching them coach in the breaks and trying to learn from that, feel like it also adds to the drama. During the rallies, it is interesting to watch their reaction and some of them sitting still without any emotion while others are all the way into it. I often cheer for Kenneth more than the player, nice to see him been so emotional... I like seeing how they work and how they manage to make the players play better after the break and help the player to get to their best game... Of course the delays and interfering in the matches is not good at all and that is a good reason to consider getting rid of them, also it does not happen as much lately.. Perhaps there could be some arrangement done in the hall to prevent them interfering? Like an official with the responsibility to remove the coaches, if they breaking the acceptable limits, without an umpire or referee attention needed???
Reducing coaching windows to inter-game (not intra-game) would be a good start. The players confer at 11 and the coaches only come in between games.
Innovation is necessary to keep sports interest relevant and improve popularity. The IBL (Indian), the Purple League (Malaysia), and NBL (England) play slightly modified scoring system. These events are popular; most of these are where the spectators, and teams are closer to on-court action, and there are other 'tricks' to engage viewers (head cam, overhead views, graphics). Football had tried to monkey about with taking of kicks from penalty mark to reduce the perceived advantage to team taking first kick - recall the change from A-B-A-B- to A-B-B-A- system. It was a resounding flop. The match times have kept on increasing since at least the last 10-11 years, without any significant increase in effective playing time. There should be efforts to improve playing time with consistent application of current laws, spectator proximity, viewer engagement prior to reviving the 5x11 system.
Badminton (and squash) should learn from an inferior racquet sport with a superior scoring system: tennis. It's not about the reducing the length of the matches but increasing the drama. Tennis has a scoring system more conducive to producing drama. And drama attracts sponsors and money. The main difference: Badminton has two layers to win matches: points -> sets. 21 points to win a set. 2 sets to win a game. Tennis has three layers: points -> games -> sets. 4 points (15, 30, 40, gamepoint/breakpoint)) to win a game (ignoring deuce). 6 games to win a set. 2/3 sets to win a game. Why is this difference significant? It's designed to stop the leading player running away with a set. It's also designed to maximise periods of drama/tension. Tennis: You are never more than 4 points away from winning a game in order to iterate your score, even if you are 5-0 or 5-1 down in the set. Within those 4 points there is immediate tension/drama created that most viewers understand: Within 4 rallies the game will either be at: Gamepoints (40-15) Breakpoints (15-40) Effective deuce (30-30) Game to player X or Y And then it resets to the next game at 0-0. 5-1 in tennis is about 17-4 in badminton (at which point the losing player will have long given up and so there is no tension - whereas Federer/Nadal/Djokovic almost always fight at 5-1 and are able to come back because you can still afford to lose points here and there so long as you win the game). In badminton's current 21 point system there's no serious tension apparent to a viewer until about 17-17 points into the game - which is just silly. (Note: this is actually a fairer scoring system to find out who is the better player but not for creating drama for the viewer). I would propose this for badminton: Best of 3 sets 5 (or 4) games per set - this means a player has to win at least 20 (or 16) points to win a set** (similar to the current system of 21 points) 4 points per game (15/30/40/gamepoint).* *If 40-40 no need for deuce - just have a "super point" where winner takes the game. Again this would immediate drama. **If the set is at 4-4 in games (and 40-40 then you can have the normal deuce system as currently implemented in tennis and badminton) or simply have a tiebreak/setting system - say first to 4-7 points and 2 clear points difference. Another small advantage: It means umpire will often call out the players names - "game(point) Momota/break(point) Ginting" or "Minions leads by 3 games to 1" or "Game, Set and Match Tai Tzu Ying" etc etc. This gives/reinforces name recognition of the players to the viewers and audience. In tennis you are seeing on-screen and hearing the players names all the time - not so in badminton. Red herring: you can choose whether you have the tennis system where one side always serves for a game or badminton where the winner of the previous rally serves - it doesn't matter. For the reasons given above, 11x5 will not make much difference because it's still only a 2-layer scoring system. 11-point games still create tension-free periods. Timeouts are just gimmicks (tennis has no on-court coaching for the match and is better for it). And most ludicrous of all you could have your star players on and off the court in about 15-20 minutes (you only have to win 33 points instead of 42) - what's the point? Can you imagine travelling to Wimbledon and seeing Federer v Nadal done in that time? Only badminton comes up with such genius ideas. Additional bonus: for the club I play with I often use the tennis scoring system when playing/coaching kids because it keeps their focus better and gives more opportunity to improve their play under pressure. Same would apply to every club player and professional. TLDR: Use a scoring system with 3 layers - essentially a modified version of the tennis scoring system. Increased drama for the same game length.
I agree with your assessment, Browning. I must nit-pick though with badminton using the term "sets" for there are no sets as such, they are games. I have never understood how games came to be called sets in badminton because a set infers several games. Yes, badminton needs to seriously re-think its scoring and maybe borrow from tennis. Games to 21 are too long and only get interesting when nearing conclusion and only if the scores are close. There is too little tension for the viewer/sponsor. But I may be alone in wanting to change the service also. It is quaint and old fashioned, suited for 20th century garden badminton. I am for something far more dynamic (like in tennis) which again creates more interest, variety and tension. It sounds crazy but please consider: Standing in the tramline to serve by throwing up the shuttle from the hand or racket. You can play overhead or underam to drop, clear or smash. There is no means to foul serve so eliminates all the current (convoluted) rules, and the serve is in up to the receivers' tramlines. Easy to dismiss as silly but has anyone tried this? Some people I know have and it adds a new dimension for playing and viewing because of the variation and new skill set - the server has choices and it is more difficult for the receiver. But this will not be taken up because it is too radical. It would need a special league organised to play a new, different badminton format and then may spread because of its attraction for players and spectators.
Guys. There are some principles that define the core of a sport. For badminton, that’s for example a neutral/passive serve and a „2-layered“ scoring system. Change both towards tennis and we would all be playing tennis with a shuttlecock on a smaller court. Do we want that? I don’t. I think it’s good to develop details of a sport to adapt, but it has to stop where you would touch those fundamental elements of it. That’s why I’m fully in support of the 5x11 scoring since that would be a moderate modernisation that still doesn’t change the heart and soul of badminton. And besides, have you tried hitting a tennis’ish serve using a shuttle? That’s a nightmare since you can hardly control its rotation and orientation when you throw it in the air. So nah, that’s not going to happen. With good reasons.
Tennis is made with so many ways to have intervals for commercials, player profiles and creating tension. It makes the audiences feel it's worth the prestige and money to watch these psuedo tension. It's all for the marketing. The 21 point system wanted to create a more exciting and speedy game without considering the consequential throw in the towels. They simply failed to understand human behavior. The old service change system has actually opportunities along these tennis lines. They just need to space it out and fill up the 'boring' intervals with nice statistics, commercials, player profiles to make it more 'prestigious' .
Interesting discussion. There definitely is a balance to be struck between changing old traditional rules just for the sake of change and being too conservative and afraid to make changes to improve a sport. In general I'd say if you're going to make changes it's probably a good idea to not change too much at the same time and first trial the changes in smaller tournaments and if it isn't an improvement not be afraid to either modify or completely abandon the idea. Of note is that table tennis made precisely this change from 21 to 11 point scoring. I personally don't see any disadvantage with 11x5 compared to 21x3 and think it has potential to make matches more exciting. You could maybe even go to 11x7 if you found matches became too short, perhaps only in the biggest tournaments and/or in the final similar to how tennis use both 5 and 3 set matches. One other thing that I miss in badminton are more statistics during a match. Something like the breakdown after a set in tennis that shows 1st serve %, double faults, unforced errors and winners etc. I think I might have seen something like this in some older matches so seems really odd that we don't have this now in 2020.
It boils down to this: Without increased tension and excitement to draw a wider audience and sponsors, badminton will remain a minority sport as far as TV and publicity goes (in the West anyway). I read somewhere that when the London Olympics matches were shown on TV some viewers got bored and saw it as "repetitive" and "games were too long" to sustain interest. The scoring surely needs an overhaul, and maybe other aspects as well. We badminton players may enjoy watching matches but beyond us its appeal really is limited. Non-players (and in my experience most recreational players and some club players) find watching three games to 21 tedious. I can't see the playing rules changing significantly in the foreseeable future and badminton becoming mainstream. Similar debates to this have come and gone for years with no real progress. I am not sure there is the will to 'up' the game!
The reality is simple. There is simply a limited number of people in the world that would enjoy watching other people chasing and hitting shuttlecock around a court - the scoring and other details will not draw anyone towards watching a sport that he’s not interested in anyways. As with most other sports, for the people playing badminton it’s easy to understand the script of a match and to grasp the moments of drama. For outsiders it’s not and it takes a number of matches to get a glimpse of what’s really going on. I’ve seen exactly that with my wife who hadn’t been in any contact with badminton before we met and is really enjoying to watch a full match of VA. Still, I don’t think she would be able to draw any of her latina friends towards watching badminton since they simply don’t have any kind of connection to it. Personally, I can hardly watch a full match of tennis. There are just soooo many breaks that are completely killing the flow of the game. First serve. Out. Break. Second serve. Let. Break. Second serve part II. Return. Net. Break. Change sides and repeat. And don’t get me started on those super unnecessary breaks after each two games. Great for the sponsors and TV coverage, but unbelievably boooring to witness.
Technology is there now to show the statistics in real-time, especially on the challenge courts. Spectating on telly, or livestream, can include information on types of shots played and what location of court. Also player footwork. Such displays can be easily accomodated during the breaks, of which there are plenty, including interval. Currently, there is commentary, however, the technical analysis leaves much to be desired. Only once there was a stopwatch overlay for the dead time between rallies (Malaysia). The IBL has a 'bonus point' situation; they also had the umpire wear camera on the head, which was vertigo inducing, but gave an idea of where the umpire is looking (which was everywhere). The NBL had a purple shuttle. The Purple League has time limit. There are already many scoring systems already in vogue, besides the 5x11 proposal in this thread. Many tournaments, at the international challenge level, have been played with the 5x11 system. And there is AR/VR. Just imagine for a moment, the 3D coverage! You read this here, unless this was already covered in the thousands of threads on BC (help Kwun).
When I was young I had the opportunity to choose whatever sport in my home town. I realized that badminton was one of the endurance sports, but I had enjoyed most the fast sports where you give one hundred percent in short time, and then have a break. Like one hundred meter run and karate. At that time I saw badminton as a singles play for me. I wanted to show what I can achieve only by myself. So I skipped badminton. With the 21 points system a new interest to badminton was born again. Especially in doubles I was able to give my best jump smashes and overall speed. But at my low level, you know, I had no interest in spending my precious time in running 10 kilometers now and then. You see already, that I am in favor of the scoring system with a lot of breaks, which favours fast skilful players.
