Badminton grew from a children’s pastime played for centuries across Asia and Europe into an Olympic sport followed by hundreds of millions of fans. Its modern form was shaped in a few decades of the 19th century, by British officers in India, an English country estate and a small number of clubs that wrote the first rules. This article traces that path from the first shuttlecock games to the professional World Tour.
Ancient roots
Games in which a feathered object is kept in the air are very old and appear in many cultures. In China, jianzi is played by kicking a weighted shuttlecock with the feet; it has been documented for many centuries and is still played in parks today. In Japan, hanetsuki uses wooden paddles and is a traditional New Year game.
In Europe, children and adults played battledore and shuttlecock from the Middle Ages onward. Two players used small paddles (battledores) to keep a shuttlecock in the air between them for as long as possible. There was no net and no winner: the aim was cooperation, not competition. Paintings and prints from the 17th and 18th centuries show the game in gardens and drawing rooms across England, France and the Netherlands.
Poona and the British officers
The step from pastime to competitive sport is usually traced to British India. In the 1860s and 1870s, army officers stationed there played a version with a net, marked boundaries and scoring. It became known as Poona, after the garrison town of the same name, today Pune in the state of Maharashtra.
The net changed everything. Instead of keeping the shuttle aloft together, players now tried to hit it where the opponent could not return it. Officers returning to Britain brought the game with them, and it quickly found players at country houses and garden parties.
Badminton House
The sport takes its name from Badminton House, the Gloucestershire estate of the Dukes of Beaufort. The game was played there by guests around 1873 and became known as “the Badminton game.” The link to a well-known aristocratic house gave it a fashionable reputation, and the name stuck as the game spread across Britain. The estate is also known for the Badminton Horse Trials, one of the world’s leading equestrian events.
The first rules
Early players followed a mix of Indian and English conventions, and courts varied in shape and size. In 1877 the Bath Badminton Club drew up one of the first written sets of rules. In 1893 fourteen clubs met at Southsea and founded the Badminton Association, today Badminton England, which published laws of the game that fixed the court, the equipment and the scoring. They remain the basis of the Laws of Badminton used worldwide.
The first All England Championships were held in London in 1899, initially only for doubles; singles followed in 1900. For most of the 20th century the All England was regarded as the unofficial world championship.
Going international
In 1934 nine national associations founded the International Badminton Federation (IBF): Canada, Denmark, England, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales. The IBF standardized the rules and organized international competition.
In the United States the American Badminton Association was founded in 1936. Badminton enjoyed a boom in the 1930s, with players in Hollywood and on college campuses. The association later became the United States Badminton Association and, today, USA Badminton.
After the Second World War the first world team championship for men, the Thomas Cup, was played in 1948–49 and won by Malaya. The women’s Uber Cup followed in 1956–57, and the United States won its first three editions.
Asia takes over
Malaya’s Thomas Cup wins in the late 1940s and 1950s marked the start of Asian dominance. Indonesia won the cup for the first time in 1958 and produced a line of great players, above all Rudy Hartono, who won eight All England titles between 1968 and 1976.
China developed a strong program in the 1960s and 1970s but, for political reasons, joined the IBF only in 1981. Chinese players won major titles almost immediately and have been among the strongest in every event since. South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, India, Chinese Taipei and Thailand followed. In Europe, Denmark remained the leading nation.
Olympic sport
Badminton was a demonstration sport at the 1972 Olympics in Munich and an exhibition sport in Seoul in 1988. It became a full medal sport at Barcelona in 1992 with men’s and women’s singles and doubles; mixed doubles was added in 1996.
The Barcelona Games were a national triumph for Indonesia: Susi Susanti won the women’s singles and Alan Budikusuma the men’s singles, the country’s first Olympic gold medals in any sport. The two later married.
How scoring changed
For more than a century badminton used side-out scoring: only the serving side could win a point, and a lost rally merely passed the serve to the opponents. Men’s games and doubles went to 15 points, women’s singles to 11. At 13-13 or 14-14 (9-9 or 10-10 in women’s singles) the player who first reached the tied score could choose to “set” the game, extending it by a few points.
Because points could only be won on serve, match length was unpredictable, which made television scheduling difficult. In 2002 the IBF tested a best-of-five format with games to 7 points, but abandoned it after a short trial. The rally-point system to 21, introduced in 2006, finally made the length of matches more predictable while keeping long, tense endings possible through the two-point rule and the cap at 30.
The modern game
Several reforms shaped the professional era:
- 2006: The IBF became the Badminton World Federation (BWF), and rally-point scoring to 21 replaced the old side-out system of games to 15.
- 2007: The BWF Superseries grouped the top tournaments into a season-long circuit.
- 2018: The BWF World Tour replaced the Superseries with six levels, from the World Tour Finals to Super 100 events. The same year a fixed service height of 1.15 meters was introduced.
Equipment changed just as much. Wooden rackets gave way to steel and aluminum in the 1970s and to carbon fiber from the 1980s. Modern rackets weigh under 90 grams, which made the fast, attacking game of today possible.
More on this site: rules and equipment, the major tournaments and the greatest players.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where does the name badminton come from?
From Badminton House in Gloucestershire, England, the estate of the Duke of Beaufort, where the game was played in the 1870s.
When did badminton become an Olympic sport?
It was a demonstration sport in 1972 and became a full medal sport at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.
Who invented badminton?
No single person. The game developed from battledore and shuttlecock and from the netted version British officers played in India, and was given written rules by English clubs between 1877 and 1893.
