Now... I really don't know where to post this. The discussion could go in so many directions, that I cannot predict. It probably depends on the title of the thread that I did not come up with yet. It might be... ... about the technical equipment side. ... about the influence of companies on BWF. Lobbying in badminton? Good? Bad? Essential? How much is going on? ... about the rule, why it was put in place to begin with and why it wasn't worth keeping it. ... about anything else I'm missing right now. So I ended up in the general forum. However, @Cheung @kwun feel free to move it where it really belongs. _________________________________________ _________________________________________ It all started (for me) with the AX88S Pro (or other rackets with the same stringing pattern)... ... and @Alex82 pointing out that it is a violation of And that is obviously true. However, I wanted to double check, because I couldn't see Yonex coming out with a racket that people were not allowed to play with and now the section 4.2 reads The (here) important part was just dropped. Now, I am wondering what the point of that rule was in the first place, what it was supposed to prevent, who initiated the change, how much influence Yonex has, what the real benefits of a more open stringing pattern at the center (sweet spot are), ... it depends on whether you ask the stringer, the player, the human in me on what I'd like to talk about, so I'll leave it up to you. _________________________________________ _________________________________________ Maybe one of the badminton law expects can chime in... calling @phihag @stradrider as well as some stringing experts like Alex, @s_mair @ucantseeme @endFX @kakinami just to name a few. Now I just want to call somebody to have a socialist view on lobbying, but I really don't know who that could be. Maybe somebody can tell me/us something about who initiated the rule change, why the rule was put in place earlier, what the train of thought was to drop it. Then I'm curious why there's the approach of proportional stringing and brands (Babolat) having stringing pattern that are more dense at the sweet spot vs. this.... And finally, I am curious about what you think the influence of companies on the sport is. Is it good to have "innovation" coming from companies that have basically just one goal or not? Does it evolve the sport in a good way after all? How much influence is there? Is it transparent enough? Should it be prevented? ...? Thanks for reading and even more so for your thoughts.
What I would be interested in is the timing when the rules were changed and when Yonex announced that AX88Spro for example. I have no clue how BWF is announcing and publishing information regarding a change in rules. In general, I can easily imagine the big brands doing some lobbying to open up more areas where they can still improve their rackets. We have reached a certain ceiling in so many aspects of racket construcion and materials that the steps are getting smaller and smaller with every iteration. Changing the string density in different areas on the racket clearly will have a certain impact on the performance, so I just guess that more brands will be jumping on that ship soon. In theory, a less dense sweet spot should result in increasing the sweet spot area and provide more or better say easier power. Being the sceptic that I am, I believe that you can achieve the same effect with simply lowering the string tension on the whole racket. But it will surely provide the illusion that a 32 lbs. string job all of a sudden plays way more user friendly.
there probably was, but I don't know when and I don't know where to look up anything other than the most recent changes (May 2021). The timing of the change together with the announcement of the AX88S Pro would be really interesting though. That's kinda how I see it. With the harder strings on the outside, you might even get a compact head feeling without the advantages of a compact head. But again... why? Just to get better feedback from the average player who plays with too high tension? To have people use more strings? Break more rackets due to higher tensions? Voiding the warranty for those? I think it probably is more related to what that rule was supposed to prevent and... what changed. Does anybody have any idea on that?
Strange coincidence indeed ... However the part of the rule that is in question is pretty weird anyway. So a racket with wider spacing only in the middle is forbidden but a racket with overall wider spacing is ok? One could also argue that this rule is violated by the old patterns that have the outer mains not parallel (hence not uniform?). Who will judge if it is uniform enough or not? I don't see any of this giving you a significant (or unfair) advantage so why not drop it and come up with new rules if this gets exploited somehow. It would be really interesting to know when and why that rule was implemented in the first place. On behalf of lobbying, it seems that one company is sponsoring the majority of big tournaments and players, so their influence is certainly huge. It would maybe be better to have more big contenders in this area but my feeling is, it's getting more and more one sided. Transparency for lobbying is always great but I wouldn't bet on that to happen. Is it bad or good in general? Hard to say. As always in life, probably some of both.
Another thought sprung to my mind. What was first? Change of the rule or yonex coming up with that pattern? Scenario#1 Yonex marketing: hey we have this cool racket with wider spacing in the middle Yonex distributor: you know this is illegal right? Yonex production: too bad we already produced tons of it... Yonex CEO: (calls bwf) Yo that rule about string pattern, is it important to you? Bwf: I don't know, what does it even say? Yonex CEO: nevermind just remove it. Thanks. Scenario#2 Yonex engineers: BWF dropped that rule, let's make something out of it.
I would think some of the rules are very old. Very likely they are not even made for fairness but rather to define the game of badminton as it is, so that everyone playing it are playing the same game. I mean... you might be able to play successfully with a cricket bat instead of a racket but is it going to be badminton? I would guess with time some of the things thought to be important to describe the racket are proven to be unnecessary and so they are removed. It is fine for me that it is the companies who push in order to change things. They are closely working with the top players and constantly trying new things and they are the ones who have the right to ask since they invest so much work in the development of the equipment...
Interesting thread. I want to drop this one, which is IMO not a flat stringbed and there is also some room of discussion if this stringbed violate the rules.
Maybe back in the day, 1995, when Prince was coming into the market, they were not welcome so a bunch of stupid stringing rules were made up? In 1995 that is when I learned how to string because Prince dumped all their badminton rackets to 1 shop, and they needed people at that shop to string the Y shaped Axis series rackets. My guess. Thanks to Prince I became one of the most outlawed stringers in the world!! Blacklisted. So sad, too bad.
