Well it's not unusual for white referees to discriminate against non-white players. Maybe it also happens the other way round but I don't notice that too often.
Discriminate against non-white players? So it's not a national or cultural bias like most accusations levelled against line judges, for example? Howard Bach or Britta Anderson would face the same type of treatment? I won't say that's impossible but have you actually noticed white people serving illegally and getting away with it and non-white players getting called? Scenario: In Canada, jaywalking, riding bicycles on the sidewalk, and cycling with a headlight are all illegal and all are quite common, possibly because of a lack of enforcement. If a lot of Canadians suddenly get ticketed for jaywalking etc., then the situation should not come as a surprise to anyone. Nor should the fact that the people who don't jaywalk or who always ride on the road and with a headlight do not get ticketed. If only certain people get ticketed while everyone is cycling without headlights, though, then you start to scratch your head. To extend the analogy, rashes of tickets for jaywalking and bicycle offenses are normally accompanied with a news story about stepped up enforcement. Since we've seen Zhang Yawen and Hwang Yu-mi (who also got called for 10 service faults, apparently) serve in international tournaments without being faulted so often, where is the explanation for this crackdown? I mean, the IBF recently relaxed its serving rules! In the clubs where I play there are some atrocious servers but 70-80% of the players serve legally. If we suddenly got a service judge, we would expect the illegal servers to lose every game or at least be severely hampered. But these international athletes aren't suddenly getting service judges.
Well I agree with you to a certain extent. Sometimes we can't be too obedient and bow to authority eventhough something is clearly not right. Too much obedience will give birth to incompetent officials because the officials will think that they will not be held accountable for their actions. Referees must be kept on their balls.
Saralee got faulted twice on serve. Wonder if IBF has told referees to be more strict about serves. I didn't see her once faulted on serve on the matches I saw in HK.
Although I do not believe that there's a plot against her, do remember that Chinese badminton officials are not exactly the most honest people on earth.
Any idea how they interfered with the warmups? I am curious as to how one can be sure that the judges are stupid before watching the game?
Plot or no plot. It's the players, the game, and the fans like us that lose in the end when something like this happens. :crying:
What if we try to look at all these recent incidents from some more general point of view? First of all, we should admit that there are real problems with judgement, and if we want badminton to become more professional and more "money-attractive", they should be solved. Namely, the most common and "hot" are the lines judgement and service. BTW, I should say that most of the players almost always violate (more or less) the service rules, especially in doubles. The usual way to solve the problems is a traditional one: more attention to judges, special trainings and seminars for them, inspections of them, etc. But I think there is more effective way - solve the problems technically, simply exclude the "man" factor at all. As for the lines judgement, there are at least several solutions: 1) Use video-cameras. This is straight forward and already get used for many other sports. 2) Supply the courts with a sensitive strips under all the lines, connected to a PC, so that coordinates of the shuttle landing could be immediately seen on a screen by umpire and (even better) by spectators. This is more complicated and requires some RND efforts, but it is well within the possibilities of modern technologies. What is important here - you don't need to be in a hurry when taking the decision, since the rally stops after the shuttle landing, whether it was "in" or "out". The service judgement is much more complicated: the decision must be taken immediately and cannot be corrected. Some more considerations about the service rules. In general, I think it is unfair that tall players may serve from higher position. They already have an advantage of their height during rallies, why shall we give them one more advantage on service? Especially this is very significant in doubles (low serve), where the difference between the net height and the player's waist is of crucial importance. One can say that, for example, in tennis a tall player, when serving, hit the ball at higher point, but the rules there are simple: do what you can and if you cannot hit the ball at higher point due to your height - it is your problem (or your property). Let's compare: in badminton a small player, when serving, can hit the shuttle in the same point as a tall one, but he simply is not allowed to do so - because his waist is lower... What is this if not a straight discrimination??? On the other hand, the reasons of the present rules are quite clear. The service judge needs some clear marks of heights, located near the shuttle - just to compare, and the player's waist looks like a good candidate for such a mark. Then, to prevent attacking services from very tall players, one more rule was invented: the racket's head must be lower than the handle. This rule is also always violated, more or less, by all the players: initially they hold the racket almost vertically and rotate it during service so that at the instance of the shuttle's hitting the racket is almost horizontal. I think it would be better to change the serving rules and establish, for example, one meter (the actual value can be discussed) as an upper limit for the hitting point. Then we don't need the rule about "head lower than handle", and service judge don't need to guess where the player's waist is. Besides, this is more fair with respect to small players: everybody have the same upper limit. The only problem is - how to measure the height of the hitting point? I think, nowadays it shouldn't be a problem - technically it is much easier than measuring the player's waist height and then to prove him that your measurement is correct. If it is considered to be off topic - I am sorry in advance.
Having been a service judge and line judge, I can tell you that a LOT of the pros have illegal serves as they tend to cotnact the shuttle above their waist. Theer is also a ton of players that get away with illegal motion on the service. Lin Dan should be called a lot more on his backhand short serve for the double action for example.
i was gonna post about that yes, many pros serve illegally (too high mostly). As for singles, it's just a technicality, i don't think the server gain much advantage from contacting the shuttle higher. It's hard for the serve judge to know where exactly the server's waist or first rib level, so serve judges are usually more lax about it. If the service judge want to be critical, he/she can call them faults as a warning to players who want to test service judge's tolerance level. Exception is tony G, i find he doesn't play the high contact service game with the service judge. Personally, i don't see much gain from serving higher than the legal height. As for ZY, she should know better to serve well below legal limit because the service judge is putting a microscope on her serves. There so many things u can pick on today's pros serves because they are so illegal sometime.
I think another problem is that the service rule is not very strict just like baseball's strike zone. Where exactly is the wraist? - different judge may interpret it different - maybe IBF need to change the rule on clothing so every player needs to show their belly button - then hit the bird below it.
..Dmitry, good analysis...however, if you could, could you make your point somewhat brief.. This just crossed my mind again, after looking at the pic and ZYW's expression, i can imagine how frustrated she was. If i was her at that time, i probably might've done a Taufik. I mean, imagine, getting called 11 times for faults, it must've been quite stressful. ..Yet, she kept on playing til the end.... Makes us(at least myself) wonder what a contrast to what Taufik did in the recent HK Open...
Some of Badminton's rules are really outdated and not good for the sport. The rules regarding service are among the worst. You can't do this, this, and that. There should be a much more simpler way to categorize what exactly are legal serves, and also make it much easier to differentiate between legal and illegal serves. Waist? Yeah tell me how do you define a waist without stripping the players?
The waist level mark is just a rough measurement of legal service. It's more important to focus on having the frame of racquet head lower or as high as the handle cone when the shuttle contact occurs. Zhang Yawen was probably faulted more because of that than having the shuttle being served at chest level. I also seem to recall that Gao Ling's short service was somewhat borderline illegal because of her service stroke.
I thought along with the NSS, this rule of racquet head lower than the lowest point of the hand has been dropped?
