Badminton - Basic Rules

Badminton - Basic Rules


SCORING AND SERVING:

In the new point counting system (from year 2001) 7 points (instead of the old 15) are required to win a set with possible exceptions:

  • If the score is 6-6 the player who reached 6 first is allowed to decide if he wants to end the set at 7 or 8 points.

    3 sets (instead of the old 2) won are required for victory in a game.

    A player serves always from the right serving area across the court to the left, when having an even amount of points. Correspondingly, when having an odd amount of points, the player serves from left to right. Please check out the hopefully clarifying figure if unclear.


    SPECIALITIES FOR THE DOUBLES GAME:

    Players are named: Even and Odd

    The Even player serves as explained above, but the Odd player serves exactly in the opposite way.

    A player servers as long as he is able to score points. After that his team mate continues.

    After both players on the team have lost their serve once, the other team may start serving. The first serve comes always from the rigth serving area and the first server, when having even points, is the Even player and Odd player on odd points correspondingly.

    SPECIAL EXCEPTION: When a new set begins the team that serves first has only one serve (even player).


    OTHER RULES:

    The shuttle is allowed to "touch" the net, but the racket is NOT.

    The player is not allowed to prevent the other players "swing" on the net with his racket.

    The shuttle landing on the line is considered IN.

    While serving, the racket must hit the shuttle under the players waist level and the feet are not allowed to move.

    One must serve with one continuous "swing", i.e. you are not allowed to stop the movement of the racket, once you've began the serve, until the racket hits the shuttle.


    Any comments, suggestions etc. concerning this service to Riku Soininen, at rikus@sci.fi.