Game play I - Main features

In order to get play started, a team is chosen to serve by coin toss. A player from the serving team throws the ball in the air and tries to hit it so that it can pass over the net into the opposing team’s court. The opposing team must use a combination of no more than three contacts with the ball in order to return it to the opposite side of the net.

The game continues in this manner until the ball touches the court within the boundaries, or the boundaries themselves, or until an error is made. The most frequent errors are to fail to return the ball over the net within the allowed three touches and to land it outside the court. Other common errors include a player touching the ball twice in succession, a player catching the ball, a player touching the net while attempting to play the ball or a player penetrating under the net into the opposite court. These are just the main features of volleyball game play. In the next post I’ll describe those which aren’t so common or well-known.