Service Law Changes

There are also important changes to the service laws:

Service Laws (Laws 9.1.1, 9.1.5, 9.1.6)
• A new interpretation of ‘service delayed’ is added so that the backward movement of the racket head becomes significant. This is mainly intended to prevent the ‘stop’ that is sometimes used on the backhand serve. It is therefore now a fault if after the backward movement the racket does not immediately move forwards towards the shuttle.
• The definition of the waist (line level with bottom rib) is now included in the Laws.
• The racket head is no longer restricted to be below the hand holding the racket. This law simply requires the shaft of the racket to be pointing downwards at the moment of delivery. The signal for racket head fault is still used for this service fault.

The photo below is featured on Page 25 of the BADMINTON England Level 1 – Assistant Coach Manual as a Service Fault. Following the Service Law changes this is now a legal serve.

Legal Serve