How does a person play racquetball. I read the rule book but it is kind of confusing without knowing the game. So, can I and another person who has never play racquetball without instruction? Can anyone tell how to play?
http://www.usra.org/usra/pub&ref/Rulebook.htm
Can a mod please move this to General Questions (or Cafe Society).
Pretty basic gameplay:
Ball hits raquet, must then hit wall,
can then bounce once, or not at all.
repeat as necessary.
Serve while standing between the prallel lines at mid court. The ball can hit whatever you want it to, as long as it hits the front wall before it hits the floor.
On a serve the ball has to be on trajectory to hit in the back half of the court floor.
Tips:
Wear eye protection. If you just can’t stand the goggles and must take them off (I have that problem) resist all temptation to watch the ball come off your opponent’s raquet.
Begin playing just to see how many sucessive volleys the two of you can get. Take turns. Viola! you’re playing! Pick up the tempo as you desire.
On a non-serve does a player just have to have the ball hit any wall or does the ball have to hit the front wall?
On the serve can you hit the ball so it just barely bounces just before the back corner? How could someone return this shot?
Is there a line the front wall that means something?
Moderator’s Note: Serving thread over to GQ.
The returning player has to hit the front wall. The object is to get the ball as close to the floor as possible so that once it hits the wall it stays low.
A serve that barely makes it to the back wall is fine. The receiver can either hit the ball to the back wall and hope that it makes it to the front (not a very offensive shot), hit a defensive shot so that it bounces off the ceiling then the front wall, or, depending on his skill level, let the ball come off the back wall and kill it in the front corner (a pinch shot).
There is no line on the front wall like in squash.
So you can hit the ball off any wall or the ceiling as long as it hits the front wall at some point? Would it be legl to hit a return shot that hit the back wall, then a side wall, then the front, and finally another side wall before that shot is returned?
Yes.
The ball has to hit the front wall before it hits the floor. How you get it there is up to you.
Once the ball has been served fairly - i.e. first hits the front wall, doesn’t hit the ceiling, and comes past the serve line, it’s in play. It may hit one wall after the front wall. It can’t hit the back wall. It can’t hit two walls After that, anyone can hit it off any number of walls, including the ceiling, but on any return, it eventually has to hit the front wall before it hits the floor.
It’s a great serve if you can do it. It can happen from a soft lob serve or from a drive serve. There are ways to return them, but they can be tricky.
In many courts, there is a line on the front wall and in racquetball it means nothing.
I recommend finding another duffer and seeing if you can crank up your game until you are breathing fast and sweating. I’m an old cocker and until my knees give out, it’s my favorite way to get that response with my clothes on. Some fun.
Can a serve hit a side wall before it lands in the serve area?
Any wall, but it has to hit the front wall before it hits the floor. It can go Left wall, Ceiling, Right wall, Front wall…once it comes OFF the front wall, it can be hit by the other player before it bounces or after no more than one bounce.
Yup. It’s difficult to return. If the ball is going to hit the back wall, a good skill to develop is to be able to let it hit the back wall and then pound it to the front wall. This gives you a little more time to set up a shot, and you end up not smacking the wall with your raquet as often.
There might be, it’s for a different game like plnnr says.
Yep. It will do all kinds of crazy stuff, too. A good serving skill.
It sure can. In fact, there’s a serve that some people call a “Z serve” that is done by standing toward one end of the service area (say to the left). The serve hits the end wall near the far (right) corner. It then hits the side wall and comes across the court, hits the floor, hits the opposite (left) wall and bounces out almost parallel to the back wall! Almost impossible to return.
Yes, but only one side wall, and only after it hits the front wall first. A ball that hits the front wall, a side wall, and another wall is a called, appropriately enough, a “3 wall ball.”
To sum up:
The Serve must contact the front wall before any other surface. It may then hit zero or one side walls, and must then land in the service area. If it lands short, or long, or hits two side walls before bouncing, it’s a fault. If it hits a surface other than the front wall first (floor or side wall, presumably), it’s immediate loss of serve. If your serve hits you, it’s immediate loss of serve.
All other shots must hit the front wall before the floor, but may hit the side walls, back wall and ceiling any number of times in any order.
Everything must be returned after zero or one bounces on the floor. Any number of times hitting any number of other surfaces are irrelevant.
Does anyone in the SF bay area want to play sometime?
Combining your question about returning a ball that hits the floor near the back wall, and Max’s superb summary, a fun shot to adopt into your repertoire is one in which you play said ball hard off the back wall. It is strictly a defensive shot, given its propensity to go high and relatively soft and high onto the front wall, but it keeps the point alive and can be a lifesaver. And it’s really fun to whack it right into the wall like that. Caution: hit from a position that does not put you in line to receive said shot right in the kisser. xo C.
How do I play racquetball? Poorly, thanks for asking.
Well, MaxTV summed up the technical side nicely and pakrat summed up my game.
I started playing again last month after a 15 year layoff. Great exercise and a lot of fun, especially if you’re playing with someone of equal skill. It’s not so much fun if you’re totally over or under matched.
Don’t forget about cut-throat. That’s three players all playing against each other, with two against the server. Either non-server can return a serve and either can play the servers returns. Service rotates to each player and only the server can score points.
I have found the ceiling shot to be a great shot that a lot of people ignore. Suppose the other guy has just served. You knock the ball UP onto the ceiling right before the front wall. It then hits the front wall very high, comes down at an acute angle and high speed, and then usuall bounces way over your opponent’s head and dies at the back of the court (no time to run back and get it). It can be as lethal as a kill shot, and it often ends your opponent’s serve neatly and quickly.
Cutthroat can indeed be fun, and I think three people on the court is a little more tricky but OK.
But has anyone found doubles to be deadly? I vowed never to play again after a guy whiffed his racket full strength about a milimete in front of my face. That could have been ugly.
I don’t see that type of ceiling ball very often. But I’ve frequently gotten into a part of a point that both players are hitting ceiling balls, defensively, waiting for one you can hit for a kill shot. A good ceiling ball is at one side or the other of the court and comes down close to the wall. But if it comes down a little bit away from the wall, you can wait until it just about hits the floor and then, wham, kill shot.