Racquetball

What is Raquetball?

There is a sport that can be played using a hollow rubber ball on either an indoor or outdoor court. This sport is known as racquetball. Using rules from handball and squash, this racket sport was invented in 1949 by man named Joe Sobek. Unlike other popular sports that have rackets, such as badminton and tennis, the floor, walls, and ceilings are all a part of the court and considered in-play and perfectly legal to use to your advantage. The most common form of this game is played in a one on one format, head to head style, but there are various forms of the sport that can be played using three or four players.

Just was with all sports in the world, there are rules and regulations that govern the playing of the game. The actual court where racquetball is played keeps measurements of 40 feet long and 20 feet wide while also adding a 20 foot ceiling. The shape of the court ends up being a rectangular court when completed. There is a short line and a service line drawn within the racquetball court itself. The short line is the solid red line that is seen in the width of the course and is the entire length of the court, 20 feet wide. The service line is exactly five feet closer to the front wall than the short line. There is an area in between these two lines where the person serving cannot be located if he wants to hit the ball.

Many different methods are used when a game is about to begin and determining who will serve first. One such method is where a player will call which side a spinning racket will land. Another is the much used in the sporting world, flipping a coin. When serving in a game of racquetball, the player who won the last point will serve at that point. When serving, the server is required to bounce the ball once on the ground, then hit it to the front wall and when coming back it must hit the ground behind the short line. After it passes through the back of the service box, the ball is fully in play and can be hit by the returning player. If the ball strikes anything before the front wall on service, then it is known as a Side Out, similar to a fault in tennis.

It is important to remember that only the server can score a point. When the server loses the point, there is score, only a swapping of service to the other player, similar to the rules in volleyball. Racquetball games usually are played in a series such as a best of three matches to 15 points per match. In the professional racquetball world, the series is a best of 5.