Carry

A carry describes momentarily holding, scooping, or letting the ball come to rest against the hand or racket instead of making clean contact. The underlying principle is that the ball must be hit or bounced rather than caught and thrown, so a carry is treated as an illegal touch and gives the point or advantage to the opponent.

The application varies by sport. In basketball, carrying — also called palming — happens when the dribbling hand travels too far under the ball, effectively pausing the dribble. In volleyball a carry is a held-ball fault where the ball comes to rest on contact. In badminton the equivalent is a 'sling' or 'throw' fault, where the shuttle is caught and held on the racket and then slung during a stroke rather than hit cleanly. In tennis, deliberately carrying or catching the ball on the strings loses the point, though an unintentional double-hit within a single continuous stroke is allowed.