The four ways a rally ends against you

The rulebook lists a longer set of illegal returns, but four of them cover almost everything that happens in a garden:

  • The ball touches the ground. Anywhere. There is no in or out for a ball that lands, except the boundary case below.
  • The first contact with the set is the rim, the legs or the underside of the net. This is what people mean by hitting the rim, and it is a loss of point for the team that hit it.
  • The ball bounces on the net more than once, or bounces on the net and then hits the set on the way down.
  • The ball never leaves the net. If it dies in the netting, the point is over.

There is a fifth for tournaments: a ball that lands outside the outer boundary without the other team touching it first is a loss of point. A ball on the line is good. That rule does not apply to the serve, and it does not apply in the park because you have not drawn a boundary.

Pockets: legal in a rally, illegal on a serve

A pocket is when the ball passes close to the rim and its trajectory changes without ever touching the rim. It comes off sideways and it is unreadable.

During a rally that is completely legal. If you pocket someone, that is their problem, and if they pocket you, the same applies.

On the serve it is not. A serve that hits a side third of the net and moves sideways in that way is a fault, because a receiver has no chance at all. That asymmetry is deliberate: the sport wants rallies, and it does not want a serve that cannot be returned by anyone.

Roll-ups are legal, and they win points

A roll-up is a shot that lands completely on the netting, rolls into the rim and then comes off the net. It looks like a mistake and it is written into the rules as legal.

Beginners call this one wrong nearly every time, because it feels like a rim hit. It is not. The ball landed on the net first, which is all the rule asks for. The rim contact came afterwards and does not matter.

The no hit zone, in one paragraph

There is a circle 100 cm out from the centre of the net. The last hit of every possession has to be started from outside it, and if the hitter touches inside that circle while hitting, including on the follow-through and on the momentum afterwards, the team loses the point.

In the garden you can ignore this for weeks. The moment somebody starts standing over the net to hit down, you will want it, because it is the only rule stopping the tallest player from ending every rally.

One consolation for beginners: you may walk into that circle whenever you like. The restriction only applies to the player making the final hit of a possession.

Touching the set at all

Contact with the set by any player during a rally, rims, legs or netting, is a loss of point for that player's team. This includes equipment that falls off you and lands on it.

It feels harsh the first time you dive, catch the rim with a shin and lose a rally you were winning. It is also the rule that keeps the net where it started, and without it the game would be a wrestling match.