Badminton

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Badminton is a game that resembles tennis and involves use of a net, lightweight rackets, and a shuttlecock, a cork ball fitted with stabilizing feathers. It is played by two or four players, either indoors or outdoors, on a marked-out area 44 ft (13.41 m) long by 20 ft (6.10 m) wide for the four-player and 17 ft (5.18 m) wide for the two-player game.
A net is fixed across the middle of the court, with the top edge of the net set to a height of 5 ft (1.52 m) from the ground at the center and 5 ft 1 in (1.55 m) at the posts. The players hit the shuttlecock back and forth over the net with the rackets. A point can be won only by the serving side. If the serving side fails to return the shuttlecock, it loses the serve; if the receiving side fails to return the shuttlecock, it loses the point and must receive again.

A game is played to 15 points, except in women's singles, in which a game is played to 11 points. If the score is tied near the end of a game, the game may be decided through a tiebreaking procedure called "setting," which involves different rules for men's and women's competition and depending on the point at which the score is tied.

A badminton match consists of winning two out of three games. Badminton was first played as an Olympic medal sport in 1992 at the Olympic Games at Barcelona, Spain.

•  Excerpts from Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia

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