BWF Council bans new spin serve in badminton on interim basis; final decision expected later this month

The new spin serve in badminton — invented Danish doubles shuttler Marcus Rindshoj — has been forbidden the global governing body of badminton due to the possible “negative impact” it could have on the game. The BWF Council said that it had approved a proposal for an ‘experimental variation’ to the laws of badminton to forbid the use of the new spin serve effective immediately until 29 May.
Rindshoj had first implemented the spin serve at the Polish Open 2023 in March. Videos from the event showed opposition players struggling to return the shuttle across the net. The trick to doing the serve is adding spin to the shuttle before the racquet makes contact with it.
In an interview with The Indian Express recently, Rindshoj had said that the serve should be banned if too many people figured out how to do it.
“As it is not illegal when I hit the cork with my racket, I just think it is a brilliant idea, but not very nice for those who watch badminton as the rallies will be finished faster/quicker. So if many players start using it, I think it should be banned because it gives you an incredible advantage,” he told Express.
EXPLAINED: The new spin serve in badminton that has shuttlers in a tizzy
BWF said that the interim ban will take effect at all BWF sanctioned international tournaments including the BWF Sudirman Cup Finals, which starts on Sunday, and the Malaysia Masters the following week.
“BWF welcomes players creating innovation in our game and experimenting with techniques to create competitive advantage on court. However, we have received several points of feedback from within the badminton community, including the BWF Athletes’ Commission, expressing that this ‘spin serve’ could have a negative impact on the game. “It’s also been observed internally that this ‘spin serve’ has many similar characterics to the ‘Sidek serve’, which is not allowed,” BWF President Poul-Erik Høyer said of the decision in a press statement.
“An expert panel, therefore, recommended to disallow the ‘spin serve’ until further consultation could take place with the membership at the upcoming BWF AGM on 27 May 2023. BWF also wanted to avoid a scenario where the upcoming BWF Sudirman Cup Finals 2023, and other international tournaments, could be platforms to test the new ‘spin serve’ and ultimately disrupt the competitions. As such, BWF Council felt it best to impose this experimental variation to disallow the ‘spin serve’ until BWF Council convenes again on 29 May for further discussion and deliberation,” he added.
The amendment to 9.1.5 of Section 4.1 of the BWF Laws of Badminton now states that the server shall release the shuttle without adding spin, and the server’s racket shall initially hit the base of the shuttle. Any failure to adhere to the experimental variation to the law will result in a fault being called, the BWF added in a press release.