Beginner Rules For Badminton

What's The Aim Of Badminton

Badminton's main aim is to hit the shuttle with your racket over the net and land inside your opponents half of the court. If you can to hit the shuttle over consistently and make the shuttle hit the floor of your opponents half you will win a point.

Your opponent has the same objective to win a point. A Badminton court has lines which outline the playing area. If your opponent hits the shuttle and will land out, you should leave it and let it hit the floor.

When in a rally you are only allowed to hit the shuttle once before it goes over the net, if you hit it twice you will lose the point.

Setting Up A Badminton Court

Badminton requires a marked out court, two net posts and a net. You should set the net height at 1.55 meters (5ft 1 inch) high at the edges and 1.524 meters (5ft) in the middle.

As a Badminton court is generally marked out you will not need to mark any lines, however, if you wish to play in your garden or on a flat area outside you may want to know the dimensions. They are as follows:

- 13.3 meters long

- 6.1 meters wide (For Doubles)

- 5.18 meters wide (For Singles)

What are the lines for?

As a new player to badminton, you may be confused at all of the lines on the court. This is because both singles and doubles courts are marked up all the time. An easy way to think about the lines on a badminton court is like a train track. The outer lines are used for doubles whilst the inner lines are used for singles.

There are still three lines we haven't discussed; these lines mean nothing during the rally but are essential for serving. There are a couple of vital rules in serving; this prevents the server from getting a massive advantage in the rally. The rules are listed out below for the serve:

- The serve must be hit in an upwards direction, with an underarm motion

- You must make contact with the shuttle below your waist.

The service courts are the smaller boxes at the front of the badminton court; a line runs down the middle of the court, which splits the boxes at the service line.

When you are playing singles, your serve must land in the following area:

- The centre line (diagonally)

- A singles sideline (inside line)

- The front service line

- The furthest backline

When playing doubles, your serve must land in the following area:

- The centre line (diagonally)

- A doubles sideline (outside line)

- The front service line

- The inside backline (Not the furthest)

Scoring In Badminton

Scoring is an essential aspect of badminton, this is how we find out who is a stronger player and how we compete against one another. The scoring is as follows:

- A match consists of best of 3 games of 21 points

- Every time there is a service a point is scored

- The person who wins the rally will win a point

- If the score is 20 - 20 the person/team that gains a 2 point lead first wins the game

- If the game gets to 29 all the person who wins the next point wins the game