Because of the recent competition I have been reading up on the rules and regulations. The Rule that requires you to change ends part way through a game, applied to both singles and doubles is interesting. Pretty simple in singles but in doubles it has caused me some confusion. In the rules ends are changed during a match only in the last game of a match (games to a 11 points) and when a team reaches 5 points. We do similar in our social single game match when we play to 31 and swap ends when a team reaches 15. If we played best of three games the game to swap on would be the third and if we played best of 5 the game to swap in would be the fifth. If a third or fifth game is not necessary in a match then there is no swapping of ends.
Lets name our teams, team 1 with players Bill (A) and Arthur (B) and team 2 being Bruce (X) and Alex (Y). The Rules indicate that once ends are changed the player who would normally receive is changed with their partner.
Let me make this point that in a game once commenced the same player always serves to the same receiver. So if Bill serves to Bruce then through out the game Bill will always serve to Bruce . Likewise Bruce will always serve to Arthur, Arthur will always serve to Alex and Alex will always serve to Bill. The essence of the rule then is to swap that sequence so that bill will serve to Alex, A to Y and so on.
If ends needs to be changed when the server still has serves left then the receivers would swap. So with one team with players A and B and A (Bill) serving to X (Bruce) ends are swapped, A (Bill) then completes the serves to Y (Alex).
Now if the ends are to be swapped when A (Bill) had completed the serves the next serve would normally be by X to B. So we would swap receiver the serve now being X (Bruce) to A (Bill). To be noted here is that you don’t swap the server around in this sequence change, you swap the receiver.
Essentially the idea is to change the sequence of server receiver.
In practical terms if the server still had serves left when the ends are swapped the receivers change, the server to complete the serves, when they change ends.
If the server has no serves left, the last receiver is the next sever as normal, and the new receivers then don’t swap their positions around.
Whats an easy way to remember this last instance. Well I’m not sure as it seems quite confusing, difficult to keep track when you are in the game. A serves to X then normally it will be X serves B so instead it will be X serves to A.
Sounds simple, For me the best way is just to take a good note of who you serve to, and then is relative easy to work out who serves to whom on the change.
Amazingly though it can be quite hard to keep track of who serves to who and indeed who serves next. Often when the ends are changed comments and questions are bandied about like; who was serving last, who served to who, whats the score, I think it was you, and so on. One person then makes a definite decision but often a couple of points later doubt creeps in with questioning frowning looks.
BJ