Service
Usually a 50-50 chance scenario is adopted at the start of a match in order to determine who should serve first (e.g. one player puts the ball behind their back and their opponent guesses which hand it's in). In order to initiate a point, the server must first throw the ball so that it hits the front wall above the bar, then clips the side wall. Once the ball has bounced on the floor, the server hits it so that it hits the side wall followed by the front wall. If, on the hit part of the serve, the ball hits the front wall first then the serve is referred to as a 'blackguard' (pronounced 'blaggard'). The receiver has the option to take a blackguard, as long as they say 'yes' before striking the ball. If three consecutive blackguards are served without being taken then the server is deemed to have lost a rally.
In doubles, only the receiver initially designated to return serve may do so, unless the serve is a blackguard. In this instance, either receiver may choose to say 'yes' and return the ball.
As the ball may be hit with either hand, right-handed players will typically use their right hand and the front, right-hand corner of the court to serve. Left-handed players will serve with their left hand, using the front, left-hand corner of the court.
Read more about this topic: Rugby Fives, How To Play
Famous quotes containing the word service:
“You had to face your ends when young
‘Twas wine or women, or some curse
But never made a poorer song
That you might have a heavier purse,
Nor gave loud service to a cause
That you might have a troop of friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The service a man renders his friend is trivial and selfish, compared with the service he knows his friend stood in readiness to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve his friend, and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my friend, the benefit it is in my power to render him seems small.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“This was a great point gained; the archdeacon would certainly not come to morning service at Westminster Abbey, even though he were in London; and here the warden could rest quietly, and, when the time came, duly say his prayers.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)