Hi! My name is Malia Bailey and we are inside a racquetball court right now. Today, we're going to learn about the fundamentals and basics of playing racquetball. Let's get started. A little bit talking about the size of the court and basic rules of racquetball. So you can play and enjoy the sport.
A racquetball court is an enclosed court, it is 20 feet high, 20 feet wide and 40 feet long. The nice thing about racquetball, is when you start playing, the ball stays on the court. You don't have to go chasing it around any like other sports, and it's a good workout.
I just want to go over how to get the ball in play. This area here is the service area. This is the short line, front line and this is what we call the 5-foot line or the receiving line.
In order to get the ball in play, what we need to do, is stand in the service area between these two lines. When you start your service motion, you can start on the line, that's legal, but you cannot have your foot over the line. If you do it, it's called the foot fault.
So we're going to start with our foot on the line or anywhere in between these two lines. When you finish your service motion, your front foot can be on the line and over, but not all the way over, that is a foot fault also. We'll talk about faults in a second.
Serves; when you're in the service box and you are swinging, you must bounce the ball. It can only bounce one time before you strike it. Once you strike the ball, the ball has to hit the front wall first, and bounce beyond the short line in this area. If it does not make it pass the short line, we call that a fault as well. If it does not bounce before the back wall, it's also a fault.
A fault is a serve that is not legal. You get two faults, and then it's a side-out. So you get two serves to get the ball in play. As the receiver, you're receiving back here, about a racket arms length. When you return the serve, you can contact the ball anywhere in this area, but you may not go beyond -- into this area, the receiving area, until the ball either bounces or passes that line. This you need just to keep back until the ball passes here.
As the server, you have to stay in the service box until the ball passes the short line. So if the ball is here, you cannot come out here. That would be an automatic side-out, so you'll lose that serve. You can come out with the ball and get into a position.
Once the serve is in play and the receiver has returned a serve, that's the beginning of the rally. A rally can last as many times, you can hit the ball as many times as you possibly can get it. The two people on the court, if you are playing singles, take turns hitting the ball.
The ball must hit the front wall. If it doesn't hit the front wall before it hits the floor, that's what we call a skid ball. The rally is over. Also, it would be over if one of the players hit the ball and the receiver, the ball bounces twice before it's returned, the rally is over. Either a point is scored or a side-out happens, and they exchange places. And just so you know a side-out, that's a term that we use when the server has lost the rally, and they have to change places with the receiver. So the receiver becomes the server, and the server is now receiving.
Some of the other brief terminologies that we use, if we hit the ball to the front wall and it hits the floor first, we call that a skip. If the ball bounces twice before it's returned, a double bounce, or a triple bounce. How many of bounces, but you only get one bounce in order to return the ball. Also, when serving as we mentioned a bit ago, the ball has to hit the front wall first. If it hits the side wall or the ceiling or the floor before it hits the front wall first, it's an automatic side-out, whether it's on your first serve or your second serve.
As you are playing, the only way to score a point is while you are serving. You are playing a regular match, you'll play two games to 15. Tiebreaker, if necessary to 11, winning by one point.
Coming up next, we're going to talk about the basic forehand and backhand grips.
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