By now, everyone is surely aware that the International Badminton Federation (IBF) annual meeting approved revised Laws of Badminton (Laws) and Recommendations To Technical Officials (RTTO).

These can be downloaded from the IBF website www.internationalbadminton.org.

For umpires and players alike, this means fundamental changes to some areas of the game and we shall all be on a steep learning curve at the new season approaches.

The main change, of course, is to the scoring system.  Rally point scoring has been introduced, and just in case you haven't quite got your head round it yet, it works like this:

Rally Points (Laws 7,10,11 & 12.2)

• At the end of every rally, the winner scores of points.
• A match is the best of 3 games to 21 points.
• The extended game (replacing setting) is played for 20-all.  The winner is the one with 2 clear points or whose score reaches 30 first.
• In doubles, there is no second server. As in singles, the server continues to serve until his side loses a rally and then the right to serve passes to the other side.
• The serve is delivered from the right-hand court, if the score is even and the left-hand court  if the score is odd.
• Players in doubles stay in the same service court unless they win a point on their service, when the change service courts.
• Service Court Errors shall be corrected when discovered but the existing score shall stand.

There are 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. The 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 the service fault.

In the new Laws, intervals and coaching are allowed as below but note that BADMINTON England has decided that for the Inter county Championships there will be no intervals and no coaching allowed. Further discussions regarding other domestic events will be made in due course.

Intervals (Ref Law 16.2, RTTO 3.3.5 to 3.3.12, 3.5.4)

• There is an interval of up to one minute in each game when the first side reaches 11. The start of this mid-game interval is at the call of ‘interval’.
• Between games there is an interval of up to two minutes. The start of this between-game interval is at the call of ‘game’.
• Drinking and towelling down should normally only be allowed during intervals but at the discretion of the umpire may be permissible if the game is not delayed by it.
• Coaching/advice is now permitted between rallies so long as no distraction or delay caused. (Law 16.5.1 and 14.2.5; RTTO 3.5.6)
  

Other changes include:

• Decisions by Line Judges may be overruled when the umpire considers that a clear error has been made. (Law 17.5; RTTO 2.4, 3.4,6.2). Therefore when an umpire delegates the line calls to the players, as is common practice, the umpire now clearly is empowered to overrule a line call if s/he believes that the call was clearly incorrect.
• The umpire has more control over when the shuttle is changed (RTTO 3.5.7). The instruction that the umpire should not object if both players agree to the change has been removed to prevent unnecessary shuttle changing.
• In the case of an injury, it has been clarified that the referee decides who comes on court, whether that be a medical official or anyone else. (RTTO 3.5.8.2)
• The responsibility for judging disadvantage to the uninjured side has been clarified and now clearly falls with the umpire rather than the referee (RTTO 3.5.8.4)
• What we currently understand as the traditional scoring system (3x15 or 11 etc.) remains an option under Appendix 3 where Laws 7, 8, 10, 11, 12 & 16 are re-stated.