Judgement of serve violations

dd yy September 6, 2024 1 0

Badminton competition rule 9 “serve” details what is legal serve, also clear what is “serve violation”, in judge whether “serve violation”, first of all to grasp the concept of “serve time”, because all players “serve violation” only occurs in the “serve time”. In determining whether there is a “serve violation”, it is important to first grasp the concept of “serve time”, because all serve violations by the server only occur during “serve time”.

Time of serve: The period of time between the first swing of the head of the player’s racket forward (the start of the serve) and the time when the player’s racket hits or misses the ball (the end of the serve) after both the player and the receiver are ready to serve and receive the ball. Here is how to judge a “service violation”.

Serve Foot Violation

It is an offence for any foot of the server to step on, touch or move the line during the entire time of the serve. When the player is ready to start the serve, the referee should pay attention to whether any of the player’s feet has stepped on or touched the line, and if it has, the referee should not call it at this time because the serve has not yet begun. Once the player’s racket starts to swing forward, the referee does not have to wait until the ball is struck to declare an “infringement” immediately. Some players like to stand close to the centre line when serving, and their feet do not touch the line at the beginning of the swing, but with the swing there is a rotation of the foot resulting in half of the foot obviously stepping on the line, which is also a “serve foot violation”. Some players are accustomed to swinging the racket after standing in a good position and taking a step forward with the front foot. This should not be regarded as a foot movement because the serve does not start, and once the player’s racket starts to swing forward to the end of the serve, it is a “foot fault” if any of the player’s feet leaves the ground or drags during the period of time.

Failure to hit the tee first

The initial point of contact between the racket and the ball during the serve is not on the butt of the ball, i.e. it is illegal for the racket to hit the feathered portion of the ball first, or to hit the feathered portion of the ball and the butt of the ball at the same time, and the main purpose of this rule is to limit the player’s ability to serve a spinning, drifting ball. When serving, the referee should pay attention to watch carefully whether the initial point of contact between the racket and the ball is only on the rest of the ball. In fact, this is sometimes very difficult, so the referee should watch the flight of the ball to help judge, if the racket is obviously the first to hit the feathers, the serve should be ruled unlawful without a doubt; if it is not certain from the observation that the rest of the ball has not been struck first, then it is necessary to look at the ball in flight with spin, roll and roll, and to see if it has been sent out. If it is not certain from observation that the ball did not first hit the butt, then it is necessary to see if the flight of the ball with rotation, roll can be ruled illegal, if the flight arc of the ball sent out is normal, it is a legal serve. However, it should be noted that if it is clear that the ball hit the tee first, then a violation cannot be called if the ball spins or rolls.

Over the Waist

A serve is “over the waist” when any part of the ball is above the waist of the server at the moment the racket hits the ball. The purpose of this rule is to prevent the server from hitting the ball flat at a high point and threatening the receiving team. In determining whether any part of the ball over the waist, first of all, we must know the part of the waist, from the human anatomy, the waist is from the first lumbar vertebrae to the fifth lumbar vertebrae, and the first lumbar vertebrae is equivalent to the human body’s lowest rib cage, when hitting the ball at the moment, the ball of any part of the ball if higher than the minimum of the extension of a rib cage, it should be regarded as over the waist (the past had a badminton game when the players are required to put the lower edge of the shirt, stuffed into the waist of the trousers, and then to the waist of the trousers). (In the past, players were asked to tuck the bottom edge of their shirts into the waist of their trousers during badminton matches, and then the waist of the trousers was used as the boundary to judge whether the serve was over the waist, which resulted in the malpractice of the players intentionally bunching the waist of their trousers to raise the point of the stroke). A “serve over the waist” violation must occur at the moment the racket hits the ball, and there are two situations that are worth noting: one is when the player has already begun to swing and the ball has left the player’s hand, and the ball is in the air well above the player’s waist, which is not a violation; the other is when the player is preparing to serve and at the beginning of the swing, the ball remains in the air well below the player’s waist. In the other case, the ball remains below the waist of the server at the beginning of the preparation and swinging phase, and when the ball is about to be struck, the server lifts the ball up quickly and strikes the ball at a height above the waist, which is a clear violation of the serve over the waist.

Serving Overhand

When the racket hits the ball, the shaft of the player’s racket is not pointing downwards, so that the entire head of the racket is clearly below the hand of the player (customarily known as “overhand”). The main purpose of this rule is to prevent the player from hitting an attacking flat shot with a flat racket face that is perpendicular to the ground, and to require that the player’s racket face be struck only in an upward direction so that the ball arcs upward over the net. There are three aspects to be considered in determining this violation: first, the moment the racket strikes the ball; second, the racket must be significantly lower than the hand of the server; and third, it is most important to note that if the arc of the ball is flat towards the receiver, there is no error in determining the “overhand violation” of the serve.

Delayed serve

The server’s swing is not a single, continuous forward stroke (commonly known as a “serve fake”). If the player changes the direction of the swing after starting to swing forward, or if there is a pause in the process of swinging to deceive the opponent, these are all serving violations. In practice, the more common situation, a player swinging forward suddenly stopped in the middle, the receiver thought it was close to the tennis ball and the body weight forward, but the player suddenly flicked his wrist to send the ball to the opponent’s back court, so that the receiver was deceived. There is also the case that the player, when preparing to serve, keeps shaking the racket, the amplitude is big or small, and sends the ball when the opponent is unprepared. All of these should be ruled as “delayed serve” offences.