This section should have been put under Indoor games, as badminton is definitely an Indoor game.
The best racquet game I have ever played...by far.
The game of Badminton is supposed to have been played in various forms and on various sized courts until the Badminton Association of England was founded in 1893. Col. Dolby was the man behind the standardization of the game and hence his residence ’Dunbar’ is known as the official birth place of badminton.
The game, as in many other racquet games is played in 3 formats - Singles, Doubles and Mixed Doubles. It’s played in rectangular courts of standardized sizes. The equipment consist of Badminton Racquet and Shuttle. The badminton racquets have evolved over time, starting from the wooden ones to the current hi-tech complex alloys of Carbon graphite, Aluminium, Titanium etc. They have been getting lighter and more flexible. The net stretched between the posts separates the opponents.The net stands 5’1’’ at the poles and 5’ at the center. The game is played in best of 3 game format with each game of 15 points. Women will play games lasting 11 points. One year ago IBF(International Badminton Federation) had experimented 5 games with a 7 point format, but reverted back to the original 15 point format. The objective of the players is to strike the shuttle so that it lands on the opponent’s side of the court.
Badminton is very fast paced game with shuttle speed reaching as high as 200m.p.h. The skills required in addition to the regular stamina, perseverance are power, reach, wrist work, rapid hand-eye co-ordination, quick reflex etc. It’s often told as in other games that a player should have the brains to see the opponent rather than brute physical strength. It has been determined that in a typical match the player covers every inch of the court and runs in excess of 1 mile. The pulse rate varies between 72 and 125. Comparisons done at higher levels of Lawn Tennis and Badminton reveal that the badminton player runs twice as much distance than his tennis counterpart in almost half the time.
The game of badminton is popular in Asia and Europe especially in countries like China, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, South Korea, England, Denmark, Sweden etc.
The major championships include All England Open ( the unofficial world title), Swedish Open, French Open, Olympic games ( the game was recognized as a full medal sport from ’92 Barcelona Games), Malaysian Open, Thomas Cup ( World Men’s Team Championship), Uber Cup ( World Women’s Championship) etc.
The greats in the game include Yang Yang, Zhao JianHua, HanJian (China) Prakash Padukone ( India) Morten Frost ( Denmark ) Misbun Sidek ( Malaysia) Icuk Sugiarto, Alan Budi Kusuma, Susi Susanti ( Indonesia). ( Might have missed a few !! )
The current top ranked players include Chen Hong, Lin Dan, Xao Xuanze ( China), Choon Hann Wong ( Malaysia), Kenneth Johanssen ( Denmark) Taufik Hidayat (Indonesia) in men and Gong Ruina, Zhang Ning (China), Wang Chen ( Hong Kong), Camilla Martin ( Denmark), Mia Audina ( Netherlands).
The Indian players in the circuit include Gopi Chand ( Former All England Champion), Siddhart Jain, Aparna Popat etc.
An interesting incident came to my mind while writing this. Immediately after we saw GopiChand winning the All England title ( 2001) on television, I along with a few friends went to a local pub in Hyderabad( Andra Pradesh, India). We asked the DJ to toast for his success. The DJ gave a quizzical look and asked ’ Who is GopiChand ? Is he around ?’’. We were embarrased by the World Champion’s popularity in his home state !!!
Some links on the WWW
https://worldbadminton.com/
https://worldbadminton.net/
https://cs.ucla.edu/~dangold/stats.html
However I am still to find a comprehensive one-stop information source.
Happy playing badminton !