Eton Fives - The Rules

The Rules

Fives has many rules that are similar to other court type games, such as Tennis or Squash:

  1. The ball is only allowed to hit the floor once (note: it can bounce off as many ledges or hit the walls any number of times).
  2. The pair whose turn it is to hit the ball 'up' must do so without the ball hitting the ground.
  3. You can only use your gloves to return the ball, no legs, arms, wrists, feet or any other appendages can be utilised in this way (similar to tennis and squash where you can only use your racket).
  4. You can only hit the ball once before it must go up, and therefore only one member of the pair is able to hit the ball during the return of a shot (i.e., no Volley ball style 'set-ups' can be used).
  5. A pair can only score when it is their serve (like Squash)

However, there are a large number of rules unique to the game of Eton Fives:

  1. All games are played to 12. However, if the score is 10–10, or 11–11 the game can be 'set' so that you play to a higher number.
  2. The start of a point comes from a serve, and then a shot called a 'cut' is used to try and stop the server or his/her partner being able to hit the ball back.
  3. The cut must go to the right of the black line on the front wall (note: if the ball hits the right hand wall and then hits the front wall to the left of the black line this is regarded as 'in'). If the ball goes to the left of the black line a 'Black Guard' is in effect and if the serving pair hit the ball down they do not lose the point; it is treated as a 'let'.
  4. When a pair reaches 11 points, the server must stand with at least one foot on the bottom step when they serve. From that point they cannot move until the 'cutter' has hit to ball. This is called 'step'.
  5. On 'step' the cutter can hit the ball anywhere on the front wall, it does not have to go to the right of the black line.

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