Volleyball Serves
Techniques and Tactics

Volleyball serves and strategies for smarter serving.

Quick Tips to Effective Serving

1. Serve with a purpose.


2. Keep mixing it up.


3. The wind is your friend.


4. Learn to serve heat.


5. Watch and wait for that key moment when you can hit a serve to put the match away.

Remember to keep the pressure on.

As a match progresses, if you keep the pressure on with tough serving, your opponent will likely break down.

There will be a key moment in the match that you will often sense.

If you have a consistent tough serve, don't get discouraged if your volleyball serves aren't leading to easy points. Often the key moment in the match is serving tough when it matters the most. The best servers are able to reach down and hit their tough serves at critical moments.

Always keep your finger on the pulse of the match so that you will recognize an opportunity to make a big play to break the game open.

Importance of Serving

Everytime you step back to serve you have an opportunity to score with just one hit of the ball.

Whether you can bring the heat or place the ball, there are important strategies to consider for improving serving skills.

Creating Trouble

Your goal is to put the opponent in trouble.

Aces are great, but are hard to come by when you're playing a really good sideout team.

Recognize when you've put your opponent in trouble.

It is critical for you to develop the ability to recognize when you've caused trouble for your opponent.

Getting Fired Up After a Great Play

Once you've recognized the team is in trouble, you want to set up to transition the play into a point.

Karch Kiraly is famous for the ability to recognize this situation and rarely misses this important opportunity to counter-attack.

You must be good at recognition.

If you are slow or lazy to recognize, you will have insufficient time to position yourself to counter-attack. If you fail to take advantage of their trouble, you will basically be bailing them out of a difficult situation.

Experiment with Different Serves

Learn different types of volleyball serves and keep mixing it up.

Make the receiving team move. Mix up your serves by serving deep, short, and to the lines.

Change it up with different directions, speeds, and trajectory.

Types of Serves

Learn the following volleyball serves. Each one of them has the potential to cause a team trouble.

Hard hit serve down the middle
It can be real tough for a team to communicate during a hard fast serve. A ball served hard between two players can be real effective if they don't communicate well.

Always Start in the Same Serving Position

Learn the following volleyball serves. Each one of them has the potential to cause a team trouble.

Hard hit serve down the middle
It can be real tough for a team to communicate during a hard fast serve. A ball served hard between two players can be real effective if they don't communicate well.

Hard hit serve down the line
With this serve, the approach and armswing are the same except the contact of the ball is made a fraction inside the ball causing the ball to misdirect down the line.

Hard hit serve cross-court
The contact of this ball is made a fraction outside of the ball causing the ball to misdirect cross-court.

Change-Up
The change-up is used to surprise the other team. This serve is especially effective if you have a hard serve that puts your opponent on their heels.

Deep rainbow jumper
If struck well, the ball will travel over the heads of the passers. Good topspin will help keep this serve in play. This serve is especially effective against the wind.

Deep rainbow floater
This serve is more effective when you have the wind to your back.

Jump floater
Serve this ball to the weakest of the two passers. Serving a jump floater short can also be effective against a hitter that likes to take a big approach.

Sky ball
If the serve receive team is in a good sideout rhythm, you might consider trying the sky ball. Many serve receive teams haven't seen the sky ball very much, and it can be very difficult to pass if you don't have experience passing it.

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