I recall reading a blog post about it being a fault if you hit the shuttlecock outside of the court, e.g. you have your foot out of bounds and hit the shuttlecock. But upon skimming through the law of badminton it does not mention it. Does anyone know the answer or have experience with this?
No law against that... except on the serve, when your feet can't even touch the boundary Iines. Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk
Thankfully, no such rule exists. It would be a nightmare to umpire: How would you decide where exactly the feet are when they are in the air? The umpire - who is the sole caller of faults - has a really bad view of the baseline. Also, if such a rule existed, I'd expect clears to the baseline to become the dominant strategy, especially in doubles. Players would have to hit behind their body to answer those clears. For all of these reasons, such a rule would be ludicrous. It likely stems from a misinterpretation of law 16.5.2: This wording dates back to 1953. As is usual for the time, the rule is imprecise or straight out incorrect. What is meant with court here is the actual bounded court and its immediate surroundings; a subset of what the ITTO - since January 2018 - call Field of Play. For instance, sometimes a player with too much sideways speed happens to run to an adjacent court (in a low level setup) or the carpet surrounding the mat in an international setup. No umpire in their right mind would apply §16.5.2 here. Note that §16.5.2 does not define a fault in the first place; per §16.7.1 the penalty is normally a verbal warning from the umpire, and only in repeated or more serious cases a yellow or red card. The intent of law 16.5.2 is that players should not go to the coaches, the bathroom, or the physio room during the game (intervals excepted); not because we don't want players to do these things in general, but because they inevitably delay the game and would allow the players to seek advice as forbidden by the preceding rule, §16.5.1.
If your foot is outside the court, it's OK. If the shuttle is outside the side of the court, maybe. It depends on the exact path of the shuttle. Law 13.3.2 says it's a fault if the shuttle fails to pass over the net. If you somehow manage to drive the shuttle around the side of the post so that it lands in, then it's a fault. I've never seen it happen in a real game though. To be clear: there's no rule against hitting the shuttle when it's out. If you hit it back into the court so that it goes over the net, then it's a legal shot. The fault is when the shuttle doesn't go over the net (even if it lands inside the line).
