In brief, volleyball is a team sport played by two teams on a playing court divided by a net. The ball is put into play by the right back-row player of the serving team, who hits the ball over the net to the opponent's court. The objective for the serving team is to send the ball over the net and ground it on the opponent's court. The objective for the defending team is to prevent the ball from being grounded on its own court and return it over the net. Once the ball is in play, it can be volleyed back and forth over the net until the ball touches the floor. A team is allowed to hit the ball three times to return it to the opponent's court. An individual player is not allowed to hit the ball twice consecutively. The rally continues until the ball touches the floor or goes "out" or a team fails to return it to the opponent's court. For standard play, there are six members on each team (figure A) positioned so that three players are in a front row (closest to the net) and three in a back row (closest to the serving line at the rear of the court). The 10-foot line, a line running across the width of each side of the court, separates the forward from the back positions. The three front-row positions are the setter, the middle hitter and the outside hitter. The setter's intention is to get under the ball and "set" or "bump" it from below, providing plenty of loft (figure B) and giving the hitters the opportunity to strike the ball aggressively and return it over the net. The hitters' main functions are to block the ball and spike it over the net. Players are not allowed to touch the net or reach over it to hit the ball. If a player's hand extends over the net in follow-through after striking the ball, however, it is not considered a violation. The main functions of the back-row players are to pass the ball to the setter or to play defense and "dig" the ball on hard-driven spikes from the opposing team. The right-back position is the player who serves the ball and puts it into play to begin each point (figure C). A server continues serving as long as his serves result in a score. Only the serving team can score a point, so the intent of the defending team is to ground the ball on the side of the serving team and thus win back the serve. A change of serve from one team to the other is known as a "side out." There is no "let serve" as there is in tennis. If a player's serve fails to clear the net and make it to the opposing side, it is a violation and the team loses the serve. Once a defending team wins the serve back, the players rotate clockwise to the next position. In this way, each player eventually gets to play in each of the six positions. Also, with each side out, a new player gets to serve. The best volleyball players are those that can play effectively in each of the court positions. The game is played until one of the teams reaches 15 points. A team must win by at least two points, however. In side-out scoring, the score is capped at 17. If the teams are tied at 16-all, the next point is the game-winning point. A match is won by winning two out of three games, or three out of five games. If the match reaches five games, the rules change in the fifth game so that a point is scored on each serve, no matter which team is serving.
RESOURCES :
USA Volleyball
USA Volleyball is the national governing body for the sport of volleyball in the United States.
Web site: www.usavolleyball.org
Volleyball World Wide
An online resource on the sport of volleyball.
Web site: www.volleyball.org
Volleyball magazine
774 Marsh Street, Suite C
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401
Web site: www.volleyballmag.com
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