Serving

What the Serve Is For

You are the only player who starts with the ball in your hands, and nobody else touches it before it crosses the net. A serve their passers can take in stride hands them a full offense. A serve they have to move for usually means a higher set and an easier block for your side. Missing costs a point and the serve, so the first standard is that the ball lands in the court.

After that, the job is to bother their pass. An ace does that, and so does a pass that takes away the quick they wanted to run. Over a match, the messy pass shows up more often than the ace.

You serve from the service zone behind the end line. At contact, or at takeoff if you jump, you cannot be touching the court or the end line. After the hit you may land inside. You have eight seconds once the referee whistles, and you get one toss. If you catch the ball, that toss is used.

Four Serves, in the Order You Should Learn Them

Underhand

Hold the ball in your non-hitting hand and strike it from below your waist. It comes over on a high, slow arc, so a passer who is awake will be waiting. That is the right serve while you are learning to get the ball in, and it is still the right serve for a lot of younger players. As soon as you can do it without thinking about the swing, start a standing float. The float gets there faster and teaches the toss you will need later.

Standing Float

Toss the ball and contact it with an open hand so it does not spin. With no spin, the air pushes on the panels unevenly, so the serve drifts, dips, or tails after the passer has already started to move.

Stand with your hitting-side foot slightly back. Lift the ball a short way with your non-hitting hand, just in front of your hitting shoulder, and step with the opposite foot as you swing. Contact the middle of the ball with the heel of your hand. Keep the wrist firm and the elbow at shoulder height or higher. The follow-through is short. A full spike swing puts spin on the ball, so it holds a smooth path and stops drifting late.

Keep this serve after you learn to jump. It goes in, you can aim it, and it still moves. You will see it as a main serve well past the level where people assume everyone has to jump.

Jump Float

The hand is the same as a standing float. You add a short approach so the contact is higher and the ball gets there sooner, still with little or no spin.

Take two or three quick steps, toss the ball forward so it travels with you, jump off both feet, and hit it at the top of the jump. If the toss hangs over the end line, you reach back, the hand drops under the ball, and the float dies. Land inside the court if your momentum carries you there. The takeoff itself still has to be behind the end line.

This is the serve you will see most often in women's college and professional matches. Men's teams use it too, when they want the ball in with some pace and do not want the miss rate of a full topspin jump serve.

Jump Topspin

This is a full arm swing. Start a few meters behind the end line, toss the ball high and into the court, and approach the way you would for a spike. A right-hander finishes left, right, left. Contact over the top of the ball at full reach and snap the wrist so the ball spins forward. The spin brings it down inside the court. You have to make contact while you are still behind the end line.

At the top of the men's game this serve is often around 100 km/h or faster, which is why passers treat it differently from a float. It is also the serve that hits the tape or sails long when the toss moves. Hit it when you can aim it. If it falls apart late in a set, the jump float is still a better serve than a ball in the net.

Some jump servers contact just over the top and take a little pace off, so the ball has a bit of topspin and still wobbles. Coaches call that a hybrid. It drops sooner than a pure float, which helps when you are trying to keep a deep serve in.

The Toss

A steady toss lets the swing stay the same. A wandering toss forces you to adjust, and the adjustment is the miss.

For a float, use only the non-hitting hand. Lift the ball a short distance in front of your hitting shoulder and let it go. Some players barely toss at all. They lift and release. Either way, hit the ball while it is still near the top, before it is dropping fast.

For a jump serve, the toss has to go the same direction as the approach, high enough that you meet it at the top of the jump inside the court. Practice that toss alone. Let it fall and watch the spot. If it will not sit in one area, adding the hit will not fix it.

The misses are familiar. Too high, and the ball is falling when you swing. Behind you, and you reach back and lose the angle. A different hand position every time, and the ball never shows up in one place. Spin on the toss changes the contact even when the arm swing does not.

Before You Toss

Servers who are hard to pass do the same small things before every ball. The routine puts you in the same stance and gives you a second to pick a target.

Stand in your spot. Let the last rally go. Look at their lineup and choose a passer or a seam. Bounce the ball, or hold it still, the same way each time. Then toss and hit. If the routine speeds up when the game gets tight, the toss usually speeds up with it, so keep the routine the same length you used in practice.

Where to Aim

Call a target before the ball leaves your hand.

A seam makes two passers decide whose ball it is, and a lot of those end up on the floor or shoved over with one arm. A short serve, landing around the attack line, pulls someone forward off the spot they wanted. Passers at most levels start deep to handle pace, so that short court is open more often than the server thinks. A deep corner stretches the formation the other way.

You can serve a person, too. If one passer is late, uncomfortable, or just missed the previous rally, go back to them. Someone who rotated in on the last side-out has not seen your serve yet.

A serve can also take a play away. If they like a fast middle, a ball into the setter's zone makes that quick harder to run. If their best hitter needs a perfect pass, do not give them one.

Misses That Come from the Same Places

Looking at the net is how the ball finds the net. Pick a spot on their court and look there through the contact.

A dropped elbow takes the height out of the contact, so you hit up on the ball instead of through it. Keep the hitting elbow at shoulder height or above.

Changing the toss mid-swing to save a bad one builds a second serve you never practiced. In practice, only hit the tosses that are in your spot. Let the others drop and see them.

A bigger swing is a worse serve if you cannot aim it. A firm contact to a spot you named beats a fast ball in the bottom of the net.

How to Practice

Start without a swing. Toss and let the ball drop until you have a run you would actually hit, something like ten in a row in the same area. If you cannot get the run, the arm is not the problem yet.

Then name a zone and serve it. A cone or a towel is enough of a target. Count how many land in the half of the court you called, and add speed only after that half feels boring.

When the ball is going in, add a little pressure. Five serves in a row to the target you called, and a miss starts the count over. Or sprint to the line and serve, so you have to do it with your heart rate up. Finish practice with enough serves that the last few look like the first few. A serve you only hit when you are fresh will not hold up in the third set.