Badminton Serve Rules: What Is Actually Legal (and How to Serve Better)

You serve, the rally runs fifteen shots, you win it, and someone across the net says the serve was too high. Club night has no umpire, so the point tends to go to whoever sounds most certain. It does not have to work that way. The service law is short, and the part people argue about most is now a single number.

The one number that matters: 1.15 metres

At the instant your racket meets the shuttle, the whole shuttle must be below 1.15 metres from the surface of the court. The whole shuttle, base and skirt, not just the part the strings touch. That is Law 9.1.6, and it is the version used in the game you watch on television.

It is a fixed height, identical for a player of five foot two and one of six foot four. The older rule measured the serve against the server's own body: the shuttle had to be below the waist, defined as an imaginary line round the body level with the lowest part of the bottom rib. That moved with the player, and no official can see a rib through a shirt.

One caveat before you quote the law at anybody. The waist version was never deleted. It survives word for word as an alternative service law, and it still applies in para badminton standing classes and in any competition that adopts the alternative laws. If your league plays to the waist rule, that is legitimate, so check rather than assume.

Worth doing once at home: mark 1.15 metres on a door frame and stand beside it. Where it falls on you is personal, which is the whole point of a fixed height.

The rest of the service law, in plain terms

• Server and receiver stand in diagonally opposite service courts without touching the boundary lines of those courts. A toe on the centre line or the front service line is a fault before you have hit anything.
• Some part of both feet, on both players, stays in contact with the floor in a stationary position from the start of the service until it has been delivered.
• The server releases the shuttle without adding spin, and the racket hits the base of the shuttle first. That clause is what ended the spinning serve, and it is why catching the skirt on the way through is a fault.
• The service starts at the first forward movement of the server's racket head, and from that moment the racket keeps moving forward until the shuttle is struck.
• Once both players are ready, neither side may delay the delivery.
• Swing and miss the shuttle completely and it is a fault, not a second attempt.
• Serve from the right service court when your side's score is even, and nought counts as even, and from the left when it is odd.

Two things catch people out at the net itself. A serve that clips the tape and lands in the correct service court is good, so play on. A serve that gets caught on top of the net, or that passes over and lodges in the netting, is a fault against the server: the let most players are thinking of only applies once the service has been returned.

If the doubles rotation is the part that trips you up, that sits with the scoring rather than the service law, and it is covered in the scoring rules.

The faults nobody calls at club level

Feet are the quiet one. A back heel that lifts, a toe that drags forward with the swing, a small hop into position as the racket comes through: all of it breaks the requirement to keep part of both feet in contact and stationary. It is also the fault you are least likely to notice in yourself, because the racket action still looks tidy.

Double action comes next. Starting the racket forward, checking it to see which way the receiver leans, then going again. Whether or not it fools anyone, the forward movement has to be continuous, so the hesitation is the fault on its own.

Then the slice. A low serve that gets cut across the base to make it dip can drift into meeting the skirt first, which the law does not allow, and adding spin on the release is out too. If the shuttle is tumbling as it crosses, look again at where the strings are meeting it.

On the other side of the net, a receiver is allowed to move. No law freezes them in place. What they cannot do is lift a foot or step in before the shuttle is struck, because the both feet in contact rule applies to the receiver exactly as it does to the server.

Hitting a tighter low serve

A tight low serve crosses the tape with very little to spare and is already falling by the time it reaches the receiver's front service line. Getting there is mechanical rather than magical.

• Shorten your hold. Grip near the top of the handle with the thumb flat on the wide bevel. A short lever is easier to control than a long one.
• Stand close to the front service line, and in doubles close to the centre line. The shorter the flight path, the less time the receiver gets.
• Release the shuttle, never throw or flick it up into the strings. Coaches differ on how far to let it fall, so try a small drop against hitting it almost out of the hand and keep whichever you repeat best.
• Push with the fingers and forearm instead of swinging from the shoulder. Fewer moving parts, fewer stray serves.
• Make the shuttle peak just before the tape so it is descending as it crosses. A serve still climbing over the net is a lift, and it will be killed.
• Aim at the T, the junction of the centre line and the receiver's front service line, so the return has further to travel before it can hurt you.
• Do not aim to shave the tape. A serve in the net is a point handed over, so leave a small gap you can still find under pressure.

Flicking without telegraphing it

The flick earns its place for one reason: it stops the receiver standing on top of your low serve. Same stance, same start, same contact height, with the extra distance coming from a late acceleration of the forearm rather than from lifting the shuttle higher. That last part matters legally as well as tactically, because a rushed flick is where the height limit tends to get broken.

In doubles, aim for the long service line for doubles, the inner back line, not the back tramline. And keep it rare. Two or three in a game keeps a receiver honest. Flick every other point and you have simply told them what is coming.

Practise with a shuttle that behaves the same every time

Serving is the one shot you can drill completely alone: a tube of shuttles, a target on the floor, twenty minutes. That only teaches you anything if the shuttle is not changing underneath you. A skirt that has been bent and clipped flies shorter and drops earlier, so you spend the session correcting for damage instead of grooving a serve.

Which is the argument for a synthetic shuttle when you are drilling. The Victor NCS PRO comes in Speed 77 and Speed 78, both £20.99, and a synthetic skirt takes several times the punishment a feather one will over a session of repeated serving.

On the numbers: the higher the number, the faster the shuttle and the further it carries, so a cold hall generally wants the faster one and a warm hall the slower. Speed 77 is the common all round choice in UK halls. Treat the printed number as a guide rather than a guarantee, because brands grade differently, and the laws define shuttle speed by a flight test instead of a label. Hit underhand from over the back boundary line and a correct speed shuttle lands between 530 and 990 millimetres short of the far back boundary line.

Height right, feet still, base of the shuttle first. Get those three and there is nothing for an opponent to pick at, which leaves the interesting part: making the receiver guess.

---

Shop it at Setra Sports. You can buy the Victor NCS PRO (New Carbonsonic) Shuttlecock - Speed 77/78 for £20.99 with fast UK delivery from Setra Sports. Browse the full Shuttles range.