Playing Areas of the Court
The slide show to the right shows the various boundaries for both singles and doubles play.
In singles the court is long and narrow.
The red area in one of the images highlights the area of play in which the shuttle must land in order to score a point. The serve in singles must land between the short service line and the long service line as indicated by the arrows. It must also land the correct side of the centre line. Serves are diagonal. So if you are serving from the right service court, the shuttle must land on the left side of the centre line, inbetwen the short and long service lines.
In doubles the court is wider, extending to the total width of the court. However the serve area is shorter. The doubles serve length is from the short service line as in singles, but the boundary for long serves is shorter, again shown by the arrows. Anything beyond this line is considered out, only on the serve. However once a rally has started the whole court is used to win the point as represented by the purple area.