Serve

As good reception is half-point in complex one, good serve is half-point in complex two, and the efficiency of our block and defense depends a lot on the quality of our serve. Often how we start the game determine our potential to continue it, so specially versus teams that have very good setter and high efficiency in attack after good reception, if we use easy serves we are giving confidence to the opponent and taking confidence from our team.

Serve is both offensive and defensive technique, it is true that our defense system starts with serve but it’s nature is offensive because we can put a lot of pressure on opponent and even we can get point. serve is only technique that completely is in control of player because nobody before him touched the ball, so if we develop our player’s techniques in serve by using deliberate practice and increase the number of their correct repetitions in game like exercises, we will increase our chance to win the game even against stronger opponent.

The main goals in developing technique in serve are these:

1. Consistency; players should be able to serve consistency in a row (for example, three good serves in a row in jump serve, and five good serves in a row in float serve). The other side of consistency is player ability to continue serve efficiently during the game from first point to last point, so he/she must keep his focus and be prepared physically.
2. Variation; players should be able to serve in both straight and diagonal direction, and also short serve to the front of the court, long serve to the end of the court, and also the medium serve to the center of the court. The other side of variation is that player can serve from all positions of end line of the court. So it is very difficult for the opponent to predict what type of serve he/she will use.

• Speed; by increasing the speed of the ball we will push the opponent receivers more and we will increase our chance to take point in serve and or the probability of bad reception will increase so they have to play out of system in offense and in sequence our chance to take point in block or counter attack will increase. We believe that for each player depends on his abilities and style there is optimal speed for serve that the rate of mistakes is low and also the efficiency of serves is high. for this reason, we can put minimum speed for serve that all players must achieve: for example, jump float serve: at least 60 km/h, jump serve: at least 100 km/h in men volleyball and 90 km/h in women volleyball.

1. Individual Tactic; ability to evaluate the situation and make the best decision among the available options is very important mental technique that players must develop in executing all techniques. So the server can analysis the situation and choose the best place to serve and most efficient speed and trajectory.
2. Confidence and Courage; players must be able to do their best under pressure and in difficult moments of the game. This ability can improve by game like drills and mostly by playing a lot of games and support and real feedback of coaches and player himself/herself.
3. Serve A and B; All players should have the ability to use two types of serves: serve with normal risk or serve A, low risk serve or serve B. The coach of the team can decide that which player use what type of serve at the start of the set, middle of the set and end of the set, or can ask them to decide by themselves. The key point is that in some situations like too much mistakes in serve, critical points, our priority in block and defense against opponent offense and so on, all players be able to use safe service (serve B) that is not easy serve.

The main tactical goals in service:

1. Bad reception in opponent court, so they will play out of system in offense and we organize our block and defense. Therefore, we need good information from receivers of the opponent and also their system and tactic in reception. We should know weakness and strength points of each receiver and team:
2. Left side or right side? Which one is weaker?
3. Is she/he good in receiving short serves?
4. In which position she/he is weaker in reception? position one, six or five?
5. In what type of serves he/she will face problem? Jump powerful serve or float serve?
6. Does he/she have same performance in reception with underhand and overhand?
7. Are the middle blockers skillful in receiving short serves?
8. The opponent team is well organized in receiving diagonal serve between two receivers? What about straight serves?
9. Serve between two receivers
10. Serve between receiver and line

 

1. Get point from serve (Ace)

• Put the setter of opponent in difficulty. For example, if the setter of opponent has problem to set when reception comes from position one, we can serve more to this position.

1. Make the best attacker weaker or out of rhythm. For example, we know that if we serve to right side of the front row out-side hitter his/her efficiency in attack will decrease, or we know if we use short serve to position two efficiency of the opposite of the opponent will decrease, or the middle blocker of the opponent can’t attack powerful and efficient if he himself/she herself receive the serve.
2. Put mental pressure on one key player in order to effect his/her performance as the match continue.

 

Technical key points in executing serve

Nowadays in modern volleyball players mostly use three types of serves:

1. Jump top spin serve or jump powerful serve
2. Jump float serve

• Hybrid serve

Technical key points for jump top spin serve or jump powerful serve:

1. Focus and goal setting (what type serve, where to serve, serve A or B)
2. Always use same start position; most right hand players use this start position: ball in right hand and right leg front

• Suitable toss and approach; toss should be high, in approach line and little inside of the court, same time that player toss the ball he/she can start approach (some players starts approach little later and some players start approach before tossing ball), and approach is like attacking footwork. Good serve depends a lot on good toss.

1. Stable jump and prepare hand for hitting the ball; server should hit the ball almost one meter inside of the court so the tossing and jumping should support this part of technique. Hand is open and relax.
2. Don’t think about ace, mistake or anything else, just do.
3. Hit according your goal; contact the ball with straight hand and in front of your head, accelerate the hand movement through contact. It is better to try to serve end of the court and at the beginning it is better to divide the court to left side and right side and as the player develop his/her ability, the coach can ask him/her to serve near to the side lines.

• Balance landing, following the game and running to defensive position.

Technical key points for jump float serve:

1. Focus and goal setting (what type serve, where to serve, serve A or B)
2. Always use same start position; some players hold the ball in both hands and some of them in left hand (for right hand players)

• Suitable toss and approach; toss the ball high, in line of approach and little inside of the court, toss the ball when taking before last step (for right hand players: when taking right step). Toss high enough to contact with the ball with full extension.
• In women volleyball some players use the one-leg attack approach for jump floating serve.

1. Stable jump and prepare hand for hitting the ball. Hand is compact and firm.
2. Don’t think about ace, mistake or anything else, just do.
3. Hit according your goal; contact the ball with straight hand and in front of your head, open your elbow fast and towards your goal.

• Balance landing, following the game and running to defensive position.

Hybrid serves are becoming more common progressively. These types of serve are not predictable so receivers can’t realize the serve is float or top spin until the server contact the ball, so it will affect the focus of receivers and also reception system of opponent; for example, the opponent think that serve will be float and the players will stay in start position for receiving the jump float serve, but at the last moment the server will use jump top spin technique to hit ball, so it will destroy the team system of reception. Therefore, the key point is variation, unpredictability and consistency.

In hybrid serve there is two situations:

1. Server use jump top spin serve technique for start position, tossing and approaching, just in last moment when he/she wants to hit the ball he/she will use the hitting technique for jump top spin serve or float serve: hand compact and firm and opening the elbow toward the goal. (mixing jump powerful serve technique with float serve hit).
2. Server use jump float serve technique for start position, tossing and approaching, just in last moment when he/she wants to hit the ball he/she will use the hitting technique for jump float serve or jump top spin serve: hand open and relax and hitting the ball with attacking technique (mixing jump float serve technique with jump top spin serve hit).

Serve from statistical view

If we look at high level teams in men volleyball, we can see that among six starting players almost 4 players use jump top spin serve and two players use jump float serve and among these players one or two of them use hybrid serve. For example, in Italy men national team that took first place in WCH 2022, four players used jump top spin serve and two middle blockers used jump float serve and the setter of the team used also hybrid serve. Another example; in this competition in Brazil national team two out-side hitters and one middle blocker and one of the two setters of team and the opposite of the used jump top spin serve, the other setter and the other middle blocker used float serve, and the opposite of the team used hybrid serve. In France men national team five players used jump top spin serve and only one middle blocker used jump float serve.

On the other hand, in women volleyball, jump float serve is dominant. For example, in USA women national team all players used jump float serve in both WCH 2022 (4^th place) and in Tokyo OG 2021 (1th place). Another example is about Serbian national team that took championship in WCH 2022, in this team all players used jump float serve except the opposite of the team that used jump top spin serve.

In women volleyball rarely we can see hybrid serve now, but we believe it will become more common gradually that players who use jump float serve sometimes use jump top spin hitting technique in order to fake the opponent receivers and destroy their reception system. Even in high level competitions and n WCH 2022 we can see that a few players use standing float serve, for example in Poland women national team, the opposite and one out-side hitter used jump top spin serve, one middle blocker serves standing float and the other players used jump float serve. So it isn’t surprising that some tall players in women volleyball use standing serve, what we saw more in Puerto Rico women national team, but we believe that gradually standing float serve will diminish in high level volleyball.

If we focus on the sequence of our team serve in opponent court below situation can happen that also we add average performance of top three teams in Men WCH 2022 (Italy, Poland, Brazil) in each situation:

• Direct point or Ace; average performance of medalist teams in Men WCH 2022: 6%
• Poor reception in opponent team; average performance of medalist teams in Men WCH 2022: 20%
• Average reception in opponent team; average performance of medalist teams in Men WCH 2022: 22%
• Good or Perfect reception in opponent team; average performance of medalist teams in Men WCH 2022: 30%
• Overpass reception; average performance of medalist teams in Men WCH 2022: 4%
• Error in serve; average performance of medalist teams in Men WCH 2022: 18%