Rules Rule: Bouncing Around the Rules

This week, over 180 junior players from across the country will gather in Des Moines, Iowa, for the USA Racquetball Junior National Championships. Inspired by that event, this month’s Rules Rule! article focuses on the multi-bounce variations contained within Section 5 of the USAR Official Rulebook. Even if you are not headed to Des Moines, hopefully a refresher on multi-bounce rules might be useful if you have little ones at home looking to learn the sport of racquetball.

Many youth coaches I have spoken with do not teach multi-bounce racquetball, preferring instead to teach the “regular” rules to even the youngest players. As a father of two aspiring racquetball players and as a middle/high school coach, I do not teach multi-bounce rules. That being said, I believe it is nevertheless important to know the multi-bounce rules because there are tournaments—such as the Junior National Championships—that use multi-bounce formats. Plus, there are undoubtedly younger kids that undoubtedly benefit from playing multi-bounce as they learn basic mechanics.

With that in mind, let’s explore the multi-bounce format.

Basic Return Rule

Under Rule 5.1, the ball “remains in place if it is bouncing.” This means, of course, that the ball may bounce an unlimited number of times (subject to the laws of physics) before a player can hit the ball. However, Rule 5.1 does specify that a player “may swing only once at the ball” and that “the ball is considered dead at the point it stops bouncing and begins to roll.”

For example, let’s say that my daughters are playing against one another using multi-bounce rules (and let’s presume, for the sake of this hypothetical, they manage to stop arguing with each other long enough to actually play a game of racquetball). Elsie is serving, and Alice gets to the ball after it has bounced four times. Alice swings, makes good contact, and the ball hits the front wall. Elsie then returns Alice’s shot after it bounces five times. Alice attempts to return Elsie’s shot, but misses. At that point, the rally is over and Elsie (the server) wins a point.

Rule 5.1 has two very important clarifications.

First, “anytime the ball rebounds off the back wall, it must be struck before it crosses the short line on the way to the front wall, except as explained in Rule 5.2.” Returning to my hypothetical, presume that Alice hits a shot that caroms off the back wall. Elsie would need to hit the ball prior to it passing the short line. If Elsie hits the ball after it has crossed the short line on the way to the front wall, it is an illegal hit and Alice has won the rally.

Note: Elsie could wait to hit the ball until after it has hit the front wall and has rebounded back towards her. That would be perfectly legal.

Second, Rule 5.1 allows tournament directors to modify the multi-bounce rules in their tournaments to only allow a certain number of bounces (e.g., two or three) rather than an unlimited number of bounces.

Blast Rule

As noted, Rule 5.1 clarifies that balls rebounding off the back wall may only be hit before they cross the short line. The exception is the Blast Rule found at Rule 5.2. That rule specifies that if the ball “caroms from the front wall to the back wall on the fly, the player may hit the ball from any place on the court—including past the short line—so long as the ball is still bouncing.”

Suppose that Alice hits a ball so hard (because, after all, she inherited her dad’s upper body strength, right?) that it hits the front wall to the back wall on the fly—that is, without bouncing. Elsie would be allowed to hit the ball off the back wall from anywhere on the court, even past the short line, without violating Rule 5.1.

Note: While Alice inherited her dad’s strength, she also inherited her mom’s intelligence. Thus, Alice would probably refrain from hitting the ball so high, opting instead for a  well-placed wide-angle pass. But this is purely a hypothetical.

Front Wall Lines

Before a multi-bounce game begins, Rule 5.3 says that the tournament director should place two parallel horizontal lines across the front wall of the court, preferably using blue painter’s tape. The bottom edge of the lower line should be 1 foot above the floor. The bottom edge of the upper line should be three feet above the floor.

This visual should help:

USA Racquetball

During the rally, any ball that hits the front wall below the three-foot line and either on or above the 1-foot line must be returned before it bounces a third time. However, if the ball hits below the 1-foot line, the ball must be returned before it bounces twice. If the ball hits on or above the 3-foot line, the ball may bounce an unlimited number of times.

Using our example, presume that Alice hits a shot that hits the front wall in between the two parallel lines. Elsie would have to return Alice’s shot before the ball bounces a third time (in other words, she could allow it to bounce twice before hitting the shot). If Alice hits a shot below the 1-foot line, Elsie will need to return it before it bounces twice (in other words, she could allow it to bounce once before hitting the shot—just like normal racquetball).

While not specified in the rules, presumably a tournament director could forgo the parallel lines if he or she decided to implement a limitation to the number of bounces. So if Sandy is running a youth tournament and decides to cap the number of bounces in a multi-bounce division to two, she could also forgo the use of the parallel lines under Rule 5.3.

Games and Matches

Rule 5.4 specifies that multi-bounce games should be played to 11 points each.

National Rules Commissioner Joshua Jones welcomes questions from members and will respond timely along with occasionally featuring a few in USAR’s Serving Up the News. Write to Josh at rulescommissioner@usaracquetball.com, and you may see your questions in a future issue of this newsletter!