Badminton Rules

The rules of badminton are fairly straight forward.

Badminton is played on a rectangular court which is divided in two halves by a net. The net should be 5 feet high in the centre and 5 feet 1 inch at the posts.

The full court dimensions are 44 feet long and 20 feet wide. The area of the court used for singles is different to the area used by doubles.

Singles Court:-
Serving: The side tramlines are out, the rear tramlines are in.
After the Serve: The side tramlines are out, the rear tramlines are in.

Doubles Court:
Serving: The side tramlines are in, the rear tramlines are out.
After the Serve: The whole court is in.





Each game is played to 21 points, and a point is won by winning a rally regardless of who is serving. This differs from the old scoring system where players could only win a point on their serve and each game was played to 15 points (11 points for ladies singles).

A match is the best of three games. If the score reaches 20-all, then the game continues until one side has a two point advantage (for example 23–21).  If the score gets to 29-29 it becomes sudden death so the winner of the next point wins the game.

At the start of a game the server will stand in the right service box and serve diagonally in to his opponent’s service box. When serving the shuttlecock must be hit below waist height and the racket shaft must be pointing downwards.

If the server wins the rally they then serve again, but diagonally from the left hand service box. When the service receiver wins the point they start serving.

In singles, the server stands in their right service court when their score is even, and in the left service court when their score is odd.

In doubles, if the serving side wins a rally, the same player continues to serve, but changes serving side as in singles so that they serve to a different opponent each time. If the opponents win the rally no one switches side and if the opponent’s new score is even, the player in the right service court serves, if it is odd, the player in the left service court serves.