Badminton Court - Badminton equipment

The Badminton Court is rectangular and divided into halves by a net. Courts are almost always marked for both singles and doubles play, although the laws permit a court to be marked for singles only. The doubles court is wider than the singles court, but the doubles service court is shorter than the singles service court.


The full width of the badminton court dimension is 6.1 metres, and in singles this width is reduced to 5.18 metres. The full length of the badminton court dimension is 13.4 metres. The service badminton courts are marked by a centre line dividing the width of the court, by a short service line at a distance of 1.98 metres from the net, and by the outer side and back boundaries. In doubles, the service badminton court is also marked by a long service line, which is 0.78 metres from the back boundary.

Surprisingly, there is no mention in the Laws of a minimum height for the ceiling above the court. Nonetheless, a badminton court will not be suitable if the ceiling is likely to be hit on a high serve.

Taufik Hidayat pulls out of All England 2007

Badminton news
Taufik Hidayat pulls out of All England 2007

Olympic gold medalist Taufik Hidayat from Indonesia has pulled out of next month's All England Open Badminton Championships because of a disagreement with the sport's ruling body in his native Indonesia.

He said he had pulled out in protest at the badminton association's decision to allow four shuttlers to play in England who he alleged violated rules by playing in an un-sanctioned tournament in Papua province last year.

Rexy wants BWF to scrap notional ranking

Badminton news
Disgruntled Rexy wants BWF to scrap notional ranking

Rexy: "Kien Keat-Boon Heong are top ranked players so it makes sense if they are seeded...but Sigit-Frans are nowhere in the Super Series ranking or the BWF's world ranking."

KUALA LUMPUR: National doubles coach Rexy Mainaky hopes the Badminton World Federation (BWF) will get their act right – as far as the draws for the men's doubles of the Super Series events are concerned.

Rexy felt that the BWF should either do away or review the notional ranking that allows a new doubles pair to get a place in the main draw of the Super Series.

Under the notional ranking system, the results of individual players with their previous partners are taken into account before a new pair is ranked.

For the upcoming All-England, Indonesia's new combination of Sigit Budiarto-Fran Kurniawan, who are not even ranked in the top 300, managed to get a place in the main draw.

Malaysia's Chan Chong Ming-Hoon Thien How, who are also without a ranking in the world standings, competed in the main draw of the first two Super Series at Malaysia and South Korea respectively.

The Indonesian said he did not understand the rationale behind BWF's decision to use the notional ranking.

“They want the best players in the world to compete in the Super Series but they give an advantage to players who do not even have a world ranking.

“It is understandable if both Sigit and Fran had a high world ranking with their former partners but that is not the case either.

“BWF should either use the world rankings or even use the Super Series rankings to determine the qualifiers for the Super Series event. This notional ranking should be scrapped,” he said.

On world number 32, Koo Kien Keat-Tan Boon Heong,who had been surprisingly seeded eighth in the All-England, Rexy said: “Based on the Super Series ranking (based on the points achieved at the Malaysian and Korean Opens), Kien Keat-Boon Heong are the top ranked players. So it makes sense if they are seeded based on their true strength.

“But Sigit-Fran are nowhere in sight of the Super Series ranking or the BWF's world ranking,” he said.

Asian Games champion Kien Keat-Boon Heong will take on Sigit-Fran in the opening round of the All-England.

Meanwhile, BWF general manager P. Ganga Rao said the notional rankings would be looked into at the next exco meeting during the Sudirman Cup in Scotland in May.

“The reason for this notional rankings system is to recognise the strength of the players who form new partnerships. We wanted to avoid these pairs from meeting other top pairs in the early rounds,” said Ganga.
Written by The Star Online

Racket String - Badminton equipment

badminton string is very important. It is the string that is in contact with the shuttlecock on every stroke. How the string interacts with the shuttle is crucial to the feel of each stroke. Depending on your skill level and the style of your game, you should pick a string and tension that is suitable for your game. String manufacturers usually have ratings of different string characteristics at the back of the string package. Pick the items that are most important for your game.

String tension affects the playability of the string as much as the string itself. The general rule of thumb is that the harder you can hit, the tighter your tension can be. A higher tension rewards a hard hitting while robs power from a light hitter. On the opposite end, a lower tensioned string helps light hitter with a better timed trampoline effect.

There is always the temptation to go higher in tension, but this is a case of bigger is not always better. Higher tension does not give you more power as mentioned above, beginners should always start with lower tension of around 20lbs, adjust it to 22-23lbs when you progress to intermediate and only go up to 25+lbs if you are gain more power in your technique. Using the inappropriate high tension will make the racket unresponsive, decreased power, and will easily cause injury.

Good brands for badminton strings are: Ashaway, Gosen, Mizuno, Yonex.

Recommended tensions: beginners: 19-20lbs . intermediate players: 21-24lbs. advance players: 25+ lbs.

badminton racket - badminton equipment

Often times badminton players give the racket the most emphasis. If you go into badmintoncentral.com and you will find that most of the discussion centers on the racket. While the racket is certainly an important equipment, the importance of which is often overrated, and that is the reason why I put the Racket almost next to last in our recommendation list.

The badminton racket is the middleman when transferring force from the player to the shuttle, sitting right between the grip and the string. A badminton racket can be categorized by a few characteristics: shape, stiffness, weight, balance.

Virtually all badminton rackets are made of carbon fiber or graphite. Some manufacturers choose to put in extra ingredients into the racket material like titanium or recently nanocarbon. I want to emphasis that they are only addictives, the 99% of the racket is still graphite and the extra benefits of the additives are very marginal.

Badminton rackets comes in two major head shapes: Isometric/square and Oval. Oval is the traditional racket shape, it is a slightly bottom heavy oval, almost the shape of an egg. Oval rackets in general have a small but more concentrated sweet spot. Oval fans like the concentration of power around the sweetspot of the racket. The shape is the Isometric or square which became more popular after the early 1990’s. The Isometric head has a wider and more squared top half of the racket head. The advantage of the isometric is an enlarged sweetspot which give off-centered hit a better response.

The effective stiffness of a badminton racket is similar to the effective of string tension. So I will refer you back to that section. A stiffer racket has the similar effect as a higher tensioned string, while a flexible racket is similar to the lower tension string.

Rackets comes in different weights. Normally the racket alone weighs between 80-95g. Different manufacturers have different rating system, the most popular of which is Yonex’s U system, U = 95-100g, 2U = 90-94g, 3U = 85-89g, 4U = 80-84g. a racket’s weight determines how fast one can swing a racket, the lighter a racket, the faster one can swing it with the same force. In general, a lighter racket is more maneuverable than a heavy one. However, before everybody goes out and buy the lightest racket, I also want to point out that lighter isn’t always better. A light racket is less stable than a heavier racket, more force is necessary to keep its path, furthermore, a heavier racket has a larger momentum and thus more effective in transferring its speed and power to the shuttle.

The final racket characteristic is the balance of the racket. Head balanced racket is becoming more popular recently. Head balanced rackets have more mass near the head of the racket. A head balanced racket is more stable and have higher angular momentum when swung. On the contrary, a even balanced racket is more maneuverable.

As you can see, none of the different properties of the above characteristics are strictly better than other. Some players prefers slightly heavier rackets, some prefer slightly lighter, some like even balanced, some like head balanced. What I want to point out is that ultimately, it is a person’s skill level and style that determines what racket is suitable, go try them out if you can to see what fits.