by Chris Wright
Often times you find yourself and your team in a rut. You and your team may be doing everything right but no matter what, it seems you just can't break the run your opponents are on. Frustration starts building, you and your teammates start feeling on edge, and you wonder, "How could our team have blown such a large lead?" or, “This is just no fun at all.”
FINALLY, your team gets the serve and now is your chance to get out of that rut and hopefully regain the lead or at least have a respectable showing. But alas, it was not meant to be as your server just served the ball straight into the net. Talk about frustrating!
Many times during the service, the server feels they need to serve as hard as they can or simply feel the serve should be a "kill" opportunity, or someone is trying to impress everyone. While it definitely is a chance to score, the serve is so much more. When your server fails to get the serve over the net, or hits the ball out of bounds, it is the biggest momentum killer there is. Though it sounds pretty obvious, it seems many people forget that the most important part of the serve is to simply get your serve in.
Don't get me wrong, if you are good enough to perform a highly consistent jump serve, then by all means go for it. But a jump serve generally takes a somewhat higher toss, an approach, and timing your jump. Compound it by trying to actually aim the serve and temper it with the right amount of power and you have a recipe for a very inconsistent serve.
It has been my experience that, while some can execute a few killer jump serves for a few uncontested points, their run ultimately ends by a bad serve. When this happens, your team never really felt like they gained momentum or any sense of control, as they just stood there, while you tried to take it upon yourself to win the game with your serving. You may have gotten two or three uncontested points, but your successful serve percentage tends to be quite low.
For these reasons, I am a strong advocate of the floater serve. In my case, the floater serve starts with a low toss and little movement. This in itself makes the serve easier on the server to place the ball and get good contact on the ball. I find the floater to be extremely consistent, it can be just as likely to get uncontested points, and it is more likely to frustrate your opponents then most serves.
A typical jump serve or any hard serve with rotation, the only difficulty is really getting to the ball in time. If you can get there, it’s a fairly easy serve to pass. Contrast this with a floater. The floater always looks like a slow, soft serve that should be easily returned. However, if done correctly with no rotation on the ball, the ball can suddenly drop, float farther than expected, or shift from side-to-side in mid air, making it difficult to judge exactly where it is going and make it hard to pass correctly.
If your teammate fails to return a killer jump serve, you just shrug it off as a lucky serve. On the other hand, nothing frustrates a team more than watching one of their players shank what appeared to be a very easy serve or fail to get under the ball when it just kind of floated there for so long, but that is what often happens with a floater. It can rob a team of momentum.
Now, you most likely won't get much adulation from your teammates when the other team makes a poor pass of your soft, slow, easy-appearing serve. They may think the other team is just messing up. But you'll know it when your serve was the reason. Even if the other team handles your floater serve, you have put the responsibility on them to convert and your teammates will not feel like you blew their chances of staging a comeback or failed to put the nail in the coffin. That is why I find always serving the floater to be the best way to go for me.
Showing posts with label serve. Show all posts
Showing posts with label serve. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Back on one to the server: Ouch!
What's the problem? Serving team players sometimes fail to cover the court properly until their server gets back onto the court.
This is especially likely when the team is playing with five players instead of six. I suppose the reason is that the players in the front row figure covering their own back row area during their own serve is not their responsibility. They are wrong, of course.
When a team has only four players, the players tend to be more generous in their coverage.
It's simple to take advantage of this:
Do your opponents leave their server’s court position (their right back corner, deep left from your position) uncovered while their server is serving? Is the server usually slow to move up and cover that area of the court?
Step One: If so, send the served ball, with just one touch, back across the net to the server's corner.
Usually, this is best done with an open-handed "set" type of pass. This is how my co-ed team lost a point last night.* A 6-foot male opponent, in their right-front position, received the ball about head-height and "shot" it back across the net and over the reach of our right-front player to land about twelve feet deep and four feet from our side-line. But I've seen bump passes work with the same success: a quick and easy point.
That's it. There is no Step Two.
Sometimes there's a bonus: your opponents blame each other for the lack of good coverage but they don't agree on how to prevent it from happening. In that case, repeat Step One.
It's simple to prevent this from happening to your own team:
1. Your two non-serving players in the back row (middle back and left back) should ensure the court is properly covered while your setter is off-court. Split the back of the court down the middle and each take a half.
Note: Do you realize that the server can serve from anywhere across the entire back line of the court? There is no longer a "service box" of just a few feet at the right end of the line. One or both of the other back row players can be to the server's right if they choose.
Some players get lazy about coverage and tend to play their own position, like one of the spots on the "six" side of a die. They line up by rote: "I'm in the middle-back position so I will stand exactly half-way between the two sidelines even though my teammate who is serving is entirely off the court to begin this play."
Well, duh-Uh!
2. Your front-right player should, usually, back away from the net to about the 10-foot line (attack line). This will help cover the back-right position's usual territory until the server has time to return to the court.
3. Your server should move into defensive position immediately after serving.
4. Your whole team is responsible for every point. If an area is apt to not be properly covered, each player is allowed to anticipate that and alert her teammates to the potential problem. Some useful alerts might be:
"Cover the server's spot!"
"Watch out for it coming back right away!"
"Look out for a one-back!
And, pointing: "Hey! MOVE!"
Scoring by putting the ball to the uncovered server's spot on the first touch is sometimes derided for not using all three available touches, for not demonstrating interesting athleticism and for being "cheesy" or cheap.
But it's still a point. And the team giving it up should have covered that part of the court.
* We won that game, anyway.
This is especially likely when the team is playing with five players instead of six. I suppose the reason is that the players in the front row figure covering their own back row area during their own serve is not their responsibility. They are wrong, of course.
When a team has only four players, the players tend to be more generous in their coverage.
It's simple to take advantage of this:
Do your opponents leave their server’s court position (their right back corner, deep left from your position) uncovered while their server is serving? Is the server usually slow to move up and cover that area of the court?
Step One: If so, send the served ball, with just one touch, back across the net to the server's corner.
Usually, this is best done with an open-handed "set" type of pass. This is how my co-ed team lost a point last night.* A 6-foot male opponent, in their right-front position, received the ball about head-height and "shot" it back across the net and over the reach of our right-front player to land about twelve feet deep and four feet from our side-line. But I've seen bump passes work with the same success: a quick and easy point.
That's it. There is no Step Two.
Sometimes there's a bonus: your opponents blame each other for the lack of good coverage but they don't agree on how to prevent it from happening. In that case, repeat Step One.
It's simple to prevent this from happening to your own team:
1. Your two non-serving players in the back row (middle back and left back) should ensure the court is properly covered while your setter is off-court. Split the back of the court down the middle and each take a half.
Note: Do you realize that the server can serve from anywhere across the entire back line of the court? There is no longer a "service box" of just a few feet at the right end of the line. One or both of the other back row players can be to the server's right if they choose.
Some players get lazy about coverage and tend to play their own position, like one of the spots on the "six" side of a die. They line up by rote: "I'm in the middle-back position so I will stand exactly half-way between the two sidelines even though my teammate who is serving is entirely off the court to begin this play."
Well, duh-Uh!
2. Your front-right player should, usually, back away from the net to about the 10-foot line (attack line). This will help cover the back-right position's usual territory until the server has time to return to the court.
3. Your server should move into defensive position immediately after serving.
4. Your whole team is responsible for every point. If an area is apt to not be properly covered, each player is allowed to anticipate that and alert her teammates to the potential problem. Some useful alerts might be:
"Cover the server's spot!"
"Watch out for it coming back right away!"
"Look out for a one-back!
And, pointing: "Hey! MOVE!"
Scoring by putting the ball to the uncovered server's spot on the first touch is sometimes derided for not using all three available touches, for not demonstrating interesting athleticism and for being "cheesy" or cheap.
But it's still a point. And the team giving it up should have covered that part of the court.
* We won that game, anyway.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
6 Tactics for Smart Serving
When your team has the serve, your opponents will probably get the first attack. So how can you pare down that advantage for them?
Tactic 1. Just serve the ball "in" and give your opponents the opportunity to mishandle the ball. This is far preferable to giving them a free point via a bad serve. If you have good blockers or your opponents have weak hitters, just getting the ball in might be the best service tactic of all.
If you can do more than "just get the ball in" when you serve, here are some more tactics to consider:
Tactic 2. Serve to their weakest passer. He/she might shank it.
Tactic 3. Make a harder serve than the other team expects. They might shank it. (Problem: Do you have less control when you serve harder? Most players do. In this case, see Tactic 1.)
Tactic 4. Serve a floater: a slow-traveling ball that moves from side to side, sort of like a slow knuckleball. (Problem: Sometimes these floaters float all the way out of bounds. If you can't keep it in bounds, see Tactic 1.)
Tactic 5. In co-ed volleyball, serve to a male. Two reasons ...
The first reason is that men are just not usually as good at passing as women. Usually, the males in adult leagues did not play volleyball in high school. Not even in physical education class. Whereas a whole lot of adult women currently playing in organized leagues have a lot of volleyball experience from their youth in high school phys-ed classes, on club teams and on varsity teams. Good players tend to attract other good players to their team. Therefore, if a team has one male who is a good passer, the others might be also. Your job, then, becomes figuring out which is the weakest passer. (See Tactic 2.)
The second reason to serve to a male is that serving to a male will obligate your opponents to get the ball to a woman player for at least one of their next two touches. If the male shanks the pass and another male player saves it, you know their attack hit will be coming from one of their women players who usually have less of an attacking advantage on the tall (co-ed) net.
Tactic 6. Make their regular setter pass instead of set. If you've identified, before you serve, which of your opponents' players is intending to be their setter for the upcoming play, you can usually disrupt their planned service receive by dropping your serve right onto that person. The would-be setter will probably pass the ball instead of setting it and, even if she does set it and set it well, their hitters will probably -- probably -- not be ready for a set coming from the first touch.
The chances are good that their setter will be standing in the middle front for service receive. So you'll need enough control over the flight of your serve to drop it not far over the net. If their setter is coming from the outside of the front row, or from the back row, she is probably going to be awaiting your serve while standing right next to a teammate. You'll need very good aim to force her into making the first touch if this is the case.
Tactic 1. Just serve the ball "in" and give your opponents the opportunity to mishandle the ball. This is far preferable to giving them a free point via a bad serve. If you have good blockers or your opponents have weak hitters, just getting the ball in might be the best service tactic of all.
If you can do more than "just get the ball in" when you serve, here are some more tactics to consider:
Tactic 2. Serve to their weakest passer. He/she might shank it.
Tactic 3. Make a harder serve than the other team expects. They might shank it. (Problem: Do you have less control when you serve harder? Most players do. In this case, see Tactic 1.)
Tactic 4. Serve a floater: a slow-traveling ball that moves from side to side, sort of like a slow knuckleball. (Problem: Sometimes these floaters float all the way out of bounds. If you can't keep it in bounds, see Tactic 1.)
Tactic 5. In co-ed volleyball, serve to a male. Two reasons ...
The first reason is that men are just not usually as good at passing as women. Usually, the males in adult leagues did not play volleyball in high school. Not even in physical education class. Whereas a whole lot of adult women currently playing in organized leagues have a lot of volleyball experience from their youth in high school phys-ed classes, on club teams and on varsity teams. Good players tend to attract other good players to their team. Therefore, if a team has one male who is a good passer, the others might be also. Your job, then, becomes figuring out which is the weakest passer. (See Tactic 2.)
The second reason to serve to a male is that serving to a male will obligate your opponents to get the ball to a woman player for at least one of their next two touches. If the male shanks the pass and another male player saves it, you know their attack hit will be coming from one of their women players who usually have less of an attacking advantage on the tall (co-ed) net.
Tactic 6. Make their regular setter pass instead of set. If you've identified, before you serve, which of your opponents' players is intending to be their setter for the upcoming play, you can usually disrupt their planned service receive by dropping your serve right onto that person. The would-be setter will probably pass the ball instead of setting it and, even if she does set it and set it well, their hitters will probably -- probably -- not be ready for a set coming from the first touch.
The chances are good that their setter will be standing in the middle front for service receive. So you'll need enough control over the flight of your serve to drop it not far over the net. If their setter is coming from the outside of the front row, or from the back row, she is probably going to be awaiting your serve while standing right next to a teammate. You'll need very good aim to force her into making the first touch if this is the case.
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