https://corporate.bwfbadminton.com/news-single/2025/05/02/up...
"The following is a summary of changes to the Laws of Badminton approved at the Annual General Meeting 2025, and a regulation update approved by BWF Council.
Laws of Badminton – Spin Serve
The spin serve is now permanently banned, as per Law 9.1.5, which now reads as follows:
“the server shall release the shuttle without adding spin, and the server’s racket shall initially hit the base of the shuttle;”"
Woah, was it that disruptive?
This is pretty interesting. It's hard to tell from the video exactly how to do it. Looks like it'll take a lot of practice. I wonder if there's anywhere else where you can apply spins similar to table tennis and the like.
> This is pretty interesting. It's hard to tell from the video exactly how to do it.
It's a crappy video, not sure why they chose that specific one. Here is a better one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_QyPCCxriQ
TLDW: Use your thumb and forefinger in a flicking motion to add a large amount of spin to the cork so that it rotates very fast with the feathers pointed up during rotation, like a top. While it is spinning like a top in midair, make contact with the racquet, but not too hard. The initial contact to send the shuttlecock over the net turns it upside down (cork points to the sky).
The rotational motion that you added (with the flick) to the shuttlecock adds gyroscopic stability, like the rifling on a gun, which keeps the shuttlecock upside-down for longer. When the shuttlecock gets over the net, the cork is still pointing to the sky which makes it impossible to return because the racquet can now only make contact with the cork in a downward position.
In normal flight/serve, the cork is pointing to the floor when the shuttlecock gets over the net, so it can be given some lift when returning.
================================================
[1] It also doesn't help that the camera view of badminton matches is not from the side, so you can't really see how hard this is to return even in slow motion.
The video says you can't just mirror it for left handed people, still need it to spin the same direction. Do you know why? Isn't it symmetric?
Not on a feathered shuttlecock, the feathers overlap in a pattern. Curious if it works with a plastic one.
https://youtu.be/n_QyPCCxriQ?t=181
"yes, it does work"
> The video says you can't just mirror it for left handed people, still need it to spin the same direction. Do you know why? Isn't it symmetric?
On a feathered shuttlecock, the feathers aren't symmetric; they overlap in one direction.
Might be possible on a plastic shuttlecock, though.
In table tennis, applying spin on the ball toss during service is forbidden.
To make sure you don't apply spin, you have to toss the ball with open palm.
Of course, once the racquet hits the ball, spin is a huge component of the game, and a big aspect of what makes the game so interesting and complex.
It takes some practice, but not as much as you’d think. I learned this serve last year at a somewhat intermediate level. It took me about two weeks of practice to hit it consistently. Now I hit it clean about 50 to 60% of the time.
From what I could tell from the article and the linked videos the innovation here is that it essentially lets you serve the shuttlecock while it's facing the wrong direction. Normally even if the shuttlecock has spin when it crosses the court it will move with the cork side forward, at least by the time it crosses the net. Hence I don't think this technique would be applicable to other sports that use a ball.
In video narrator feels sorry for not explaining how to do it :)
Albeit ime this is something even kids do, not sure why it is "new"?
Edit: I may be referring to the Sidek serve it was based on
From reddit (also not 100% sure):
The sidek serve is an other technique and has been banned for some decades (not 100% sure, but the spinning effect was caused by hitting the feathers first , I think), whereas the new spinning serve resulted from spinning the shuttle with the fingers before hitting the cork.
https://old.reddit.com/r/badminton/comments/1e18zys/comment/...
Yes, the Sidek Serve involves hitting the feathers first. The controversy over the serve was widely publicised in Malaysia (my birth country) at the time, as it was 'invented' by Misbun Sidek.
The Sidek family was a dominant badminton force for Malaysia during that period. [1]
The difficult part is to do it in the same action as other serves. I used to do it as a kid around 20 years ago, but my action for this serve was different, so easily noticeable.
Slightly related: squash kill shot https://baptistedarboistexier.wordpress.com/2015/01/12/the-p...