NEW: Fixed Height Experiment for Service

So my question is why drive serves are not faulted now with the new 115cm rule while they were always faulted before.
I'm not so sure they ever were faulted because I never once saw one even attempted by a pro. But even flicks were faulted, so often based on erroneous judgments that the shafts were pointing upward. I know that many on this forum have, as Cheung pointed out, said it was impossible to drive a serve legally under the old rules, something with which I and others disagree. I also know that drive serves in club play often elicit accusations of faults, in the absence of any reference to rules in many cases. I would say that top players just assumed, correctly, that BWF umpires would fault any attempt at a drive serve. Another reason we never saw them, however, may be that players felt they would always be, as phihag put it, driving "against a well-prepared receiver with good reflexes just [giving] them more power and speed to return, going downwards" and that having that extra shaft angle constraint did not allow them to gain the advantage they now perceive they have.

Personally, I don't see that there is such a big difference in the advantage between the new and old rules. I think under either, a drive might work once per match and the second attempt would be severely punished by a ready opponent. However, I am firmly convinced that under the former rules, both the first and second attempts would be faulted by BWF service judges.
 
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That vid is very misleading. He pulled his pants very very high to prove his point.
If you mean misleading about the disadvantage claimed by taller players, I agree. I don't think the waistbands affect our judgment of where their ribs are, though.
 
If you mean misleading about the disadvantage claimed by taller players, I agree. I don't think the waistbands affect our judgment of where their ribs are, though.
We only have to watch Viktor's latest matches under the new service height rule to see that his serve has barely changed at all. At least I didn't notice that his serve got attacked more than in the past (let's face the truth - his serve has never been the tightest to say the least...). And as far as I have seen, he has stopped attacking the new rule via social media in the past months.
 
The Badminton World Federation (BWF) will start new rule; the racquet to be at the fixed height of 1.15 meters above the surface of the court at the instant of being hit by the server’s racquet. BWF is intended to start testing of this Experimental Service Law from March 1st, 2018, including at the TOTAL BWF Thomas & Uber Cup Finals 2018 in Bangkok and at the TOTAL BWF World Championships 2018 in Nanjing.

At the recent meeting by the BWF Council in Montego Bay, Jamaica, the finalization of arrangements for this implementation was among decisions made by the members. One of the other decisions at the meeting was by the development department, which is the approval of USD 6 million by the international federation to support capacity building within its continental confederations over the next six years.

The first event of the new BWF tournament series at which this experimental law will be introduced is the All England Open Badminton Championships 2018; all Grade-1 events will undergo this testing except the BWF World Junior Championships. The change of the proposed rule will be brought before the BWF Annual General Meeting in May to give effect to this testing.

BWF President Poul-Erik Høyer said, “The serve is an integral part of badminton. Over the years, we have been looking for ways to improve how the service laws are applied.”

“Therefore, after various investigations and deliberations, the Council has determined to implement this Experimental Service Law in an effort to improve the application of the service laws at BWF tournaments. We hope this will yield positive feedback from our membership,” he added.

On the other hand, BWF will be hosting training workshops for BWF Umpire Assessors in Kuala Lumpur in January followed by holding training courses by the BWF Umpire Assessors at the continental team championships in February; the training includes how to use the measuring devices that will determine service height.

“As our sport grows globally and the demands for resources increase, it is crucial that we equip our confederations to deliver projects effectively to our member associations,” noted Høyer.

“Our objective is to ensure confederations can offer tailor-made services to our membership to propel badminton’s development at a regional and national level.”

BWF, on the account of focusing to develop players outside of the court, explained, “We want to help players develop commercial best practices as well as to understand how they can market themselves better as commercial properties; essentially how they and badminton can benefit from their on-court success. This will involve elements such as social-media management, language training, media training and how to maximise their commercial value to sponsors,” by BWF Secretary General Thomas Lund.

Did you intend to post that? This press release from BWF is from 2017. @Master already posted it in this very thread.

In any case, if you post somebody else's words, you should include proper attribution, and mark the text as such.
 
Aha! Then why is it not getting faulted now?
I think the fault called on the drive serves before this new service rule was more on the racket pointing direction (not pointing downward from the service judge's point of view)
And as the racket pointing direction is no longer an issue, there is no more reason to fault the drive serves except if it was hit above 1.15m.
 
I think the fault called on the drive serves before this new service rule was more on the racket pointing direction (not pointing downward from the service judge's point of view)
And as the racket pointing direction is no longer an issue, there is no more reason to fault the drive serves except if it was hit above 1.15m.
Yah, my rhetorical question was trying to elicit this answer from Cheung, but he somehow didn't follow.

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to be very clear once again for me as i am not sure i understand your discussion correctly:

You can now serve with the racket pointing upwards? It would be legal now?
 
to be very clear once again for me as i am not sure i understand your discussion correctly:

You can now serve with the racket pointing upwards? It would be legal now?
You pretty much can do anything with your racket pointing direction as long as it is under 1.15m when it touches the shuttle.
 
In spirit yes, but not precisely. The whole shuttle must be below 1.15m when it is hit during the serve.
If there were no service judge around to look through the glass panels with the double lines, how could you tell you are actually serving below 1.15m or not?
 
If there were no service judge around to look through the glass panels with the double lines, how could you tell you are actually serving below 1.15m or not?

Same way you judged previously - estimate where the line is, and call fault if the shuttle is over, bearing in mind §6.7 ITTO, i.e. not calling if in doubt. If the fixed service height rule persists, BWF, the continental associations, the national federations, and manufacturers may also add additional helpers, for instance a small line on the net.

Note that BWF already announced that they'd let the other associations&federations decide whether to adopt the fixed service height. Even BWF itself excepted the World Junior Championships from the fixed height service law. So it's certainly not outside the realm of possibilities that some/many/all national federations continue to use the pre-2018 lowest rib + racket angle service laws for quite some time.
 
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this 1.15m service rule,
as long as the shuttle is hit within the stipulated height, and flicks will do? no more 'racket head pointing up' issues?
 
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