Badminton

Badminton is a racquet sport where players use racquets to hit a shuttlecock over a net. While larger teams are possible, the most common formats are singles (one player per side) and doubles (two per side). Casual games often happen outdoors in yards or on beaches, but professional matches take place on a rectangular indoor court. Points are earned by striking the shuttlecock so it lands within the opponent's half of the court, inside the designated boundaries. Each side can hit the shuttlecock only once before it must cross the net. Play stops when the shuttlecock hits the floor or ground, or when a fault is called by an umpire, service judge, or (if none are present) the opposing side.

The shuttlecock itself is a feathered or plastic projectile that behaves differently from balls in most other sports. Its feathers create much higher drag, causing it to slow down quickly. Despite this, it can reach very high speeds, making badminton the fastest racquet sport. The shuttlecock's unique flight gives the sport its character; in some languages, the sport is named after this feature (for example, German *Federball*, meaning "feather-ball").

The modern game developed in British India from the earlier game of battledore and shuttlecock. In Europe, Denmark became a stronghold, but the sport has grown especially popular in Asia. Badminton became a Summer Olympic sport in 1992, with four events: men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, and women's doubles. Mixed doubles was added four years later. At elite levels, the sport demands excellent fitness—players need aerobic stamina, agility, strength, speed, and precision. It is also highly technical, requiring good motor coordination and sophisticated racquet movements, with much greater wrist flexibility than in some other racquet sports.

**History**

Shuttlecock games have been played across Eurasia for centuries, but modern badminton took shape in the mid-19th century among British expatriate officers in India, as a variation of battledore and shuttlecock (where "battledore" was an older term for "racquet"). Its exact origins are unclear. The name comes from the Duke of Beaufort's Badminton House in Gloucestershire, though why or when is unknown. As early as 1860, London toy dealer Isaac Spratt published a booklet called *Badminton Battledore – A New Game*, but no copy survives. An 1863 article in *The Cornhill Magazine* described badminton as "battledore and shuttlecock played with sides, across a string suspended some five feet from the ground."

The game first developed among British expatriates in India, where it was very popular by the 1870s. Ball badminton, a version using a wool ball instead of a shuttlecock, was played in Thanjavur as early as the 1850s and was initially used interchangeably with badminton by the British, who preferred the wool ball in windy or wet weather. Early on, the sport was also called Poona or Poonah, after the garrison town of Poona (Pune), where it was especially popular and where the first rules were drawn up in 1873. By 1875, returning officers had started a badminton club in Folkestone. Initially, sides ranged from one to four players, but games between two or four competitors quickly proved best. Shuttlecocks were coated with India rubber and, for outdoor play, sometimes weighted with lead. The net's depth didn't matter, but it was preferred that it reach the ground.

The sport followed the Pune rules until 1887, when J. H. E. Hart of the Bath Badminton Club drew up revised regulations. In 1890, Hart and Bagnel Wild revised the rules again. The Badminton Association of England (BAE) published these rules in 1893 and officially launched the sport at a house called "Dunbar" in Portsmouth on 13 September. The BAE started the first badminton competition, the All England Open Badminton Championships, in 1899 for gentlemen's doubles, ladies' doubles, and mixed doubles. Singles competitions were added in 1900, and an England–Ireland championship match appeared in 1904. England, Scotland, Wales, Canada, Denmark, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, and New Zealand were founding members of the International Badminton Federation in 1934 (now the Badminton World Federation). India joined as an affiliate in 1936. The BWF now governs international badminton. Although initiated in England, competitive men's badminton has traditionally been dominated in Europe by Denmark. Worldwide, Asian nations have become dominant. China, Denmark, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, South Korea, Taiwan (playing as 'Chinese Taipei'), and Japan have consistently produced world-class players in recent decades, with China being the strongest force in both men's and women's competition.

**Rules**

The following is a simplified summary of badminton rules based on the BWF Statutes publication, *Laws of Badminton*.

**Court**

The court is rectangular and divided into halves by a net. Courts are usually marked for both singles and doubles, though rules allow a court to be marked for singles only. The doubles court is wider than the singles court, but both are the same length. An exception that often confuses newer players is that the doubles court has a shorter serve-length dimension. The full width of the court is 6.1 metres (20 feet); in singles, this width is reduced to 5.18 metres (17.0 feet). The full length of the court is 13.4 metres (44 feet). The service courts are marked by a centre line.