9.1.7 the movement of the server’s racket shall continue forwards from the start of the service (Law 9.2) until the service is delivered (Law 9.3); That is the offical ruling, so yes the racket does have to move foward, but it never says it has to be smooth. Under this law, you can start the serve and move extremely slow for 5 seconds before hitting the bird as long as it is moving foward the whole time.
Indeed, the racquet's approach to the shuttle can be along an 'S' curve. This will really throw the receiver off...
so, by this definition, if you're in the middle of your forward swing, you can all of a sudden stop, wait half a second and then flick it, as long as the racket is moving forward? that's contrary to what i was taught. my coach always told me that the forward swing has to be one smooth continuous swing.
Well, quite clearly if you stop the swing the forward motion of the racquet is not continuous, so that would be a fault. It is almost impossible to continue a forward swing at a number of different speeds without stopping the forward motion or screwing up the serve so this is not really a practical issue, is it?
Well, I believe that it's a very practical issue because we are talking about world class players who have near perfect control of the racket. I mean think about a shot from the back line. Good deception would be looking like you are going to clear, but slow down mid swing getting ready for a down the line drop then close to the end speed up the swing and snap causing a slice resulting in a cross court drop.
But the laws regarding the serve make this kind of thing even more difficult in serving. And not really worth the risk of faulting. How many players do you think can achieve this perfect racquet control in the serve? Do you have a video of them doing it?
I don't see why this would be hard nor of it as an additional risk. The ability to change speed during the stroke is nothing more then muscle control which I believe anybody can do. Why? Because every string instrument player out there that can get pass "mary had a lil lamb" can play consecutive notes in one draw. This is in essense the same motion, a single foward (or backwards) motion that involve variation in speed.
I'm not sure your idea of playing a bowed stringed instrument is very accurate. Changes of bowing speed come for whole bow strokes. And muliple notes are played on every stroke becasue the bow touches more than one string AND the player is fingering with the other hand. This is nothing to do with changing the bow speed within a stroke. In any event, these actions are the whole business of a violinist (for example) - they practise just this. The additional risk is that you can be faulted on a serve. In the case of a normal shot you have the luxury of being able to perform multiple backlifts and can stop forward motion at any time. The only penalty is that you might mess up the shot. In the case of a service, you can mess up the shot AND if you do a second backlift you lose the point. And slowing the forward motion and then speeding it up again (particularly in the case of a backhand serveice action) is extremely difficult.
It is hard for service judge to notice the fault. Only replays will be able to detect. As usual, human errors. But looking at replays will cause the game to be delayed a little while. Good for players but bad for badminton live coverage.
Watching Lin's backhand serve this evening on my All England 2007 recordings, I began to notice this very same "double action" backhand serve myself. As I understand it, once the racket head has started to move forwards, it CANNOT move backwards again until AFTER the bird has been hit. Several times, though, Lin Dan very clearly addresed the shuttle with a serve-like practice motion before hitting it - anybody who wants proof of this can watch the final with Chen Yu, for example. Not once was he pulled up, though, AND it was evident without the aid of replays! I'm not even going to entertain the notion that LD is cheating - he just doesn't NEED to! - but a simple bad habit might be to blame (I myself have an insane serve at my disposal that starts as a BH and turns into a FH, and for over a month it was called every time). If LD's serve breaks the rules, then it should be called (or why have rules at all) but, to be honest, it would be a simple enough adjustment for him to make.
I VERY much doubt that! It might be that it's just too fast for them to detect, but if I can spot it ... I don't know how well the All England was covered on TV outside the UK, but can I swear to any/all gods that I spotted at least half a dozen in his final against Chen Yu (can anybody who saw that match step in and corroborate? please?). It's all too easy to go after the top dog, I know, but I don't think anybody on BC would stoop to it, especially since Lin Dan is probably one of the best ambassadors the game has ever had - a true gentleman, makes a huge amount of time for his (numerous) fans, and clearly loves badminton. All I will say is that the 2007 AE Final contained enough dubious serves for me to post here, and that's only one match in his prolific career... (In all seriousness, anybody with access to that match I mentioned should watch it carefully...)
i think the best person to notice it is chen yu himself and make complain to the umpire. Since he did not do that, it's water under the table. In the end, the best man won anyway.
That's true, also it's merely a serve, it did not characterize the rallies or the match, which you can't really cheat in.
