Comparative Value of the Three Serves

Articles In This Section:

· The Serve

· Underhand Serve

· Overhand Serve

· Roundhouse Serve

· Comparative Value of the Three Serves

· The Screen for the Server - Part 1

· Strategy of the Serve

· Role of the Serve in National Championships

For many years the underhand serve was the basic or fundamental service in volleyball. Now this serve has been replaced in popularity by the overhand serve. Women players can and do learn the overhand serve, while practically all of the better men players use it.

The underhand serve is of value at the secondary school level, but its value on the college level and above is questionable. The ball must travel in a relatively high arc to get over the net, and this gives the receivers time to move back for a deep serve or forward for a serve dropping over the net. "Very few of the top teams use the easily received underhand serve." ⁶

At Emory University Welch teaches only the overhand serve to freshmen and sophomores. In a volleyball workshop at the University of Wisconsin, Wilson taught the overhand serve to a class of fifty women and ten men. "They learned to serve overhand fairly well in the first two days of class." ⁷

Caldwell has given an excellent summary of the advantages of the overhand serve as compared to the underhand serve: "You can serve a much faster ball, which gives your opponents less time to move into position to reach the ball. You can impart more top-spin to the ball, as in tennis. The top-spin causes the ball to drop much faster, and your opponents must be careful to take the spin off the ball when making their pass from the serve. It is a little easier to serve a hard no-spin ball (floater) with the overhand serve. The no-spin ball is used since it is hard to guess which direction it will go as the ball comes over the net." ⁸ Whereas Caldwell speaks of a hard floater, Wilson is quick to point out that a ball does not have to be hit hard to make it float.⁹ A slow floater may be likened to a knuckle ball in baseball. The key factor with the floater is whether or not it dips and breaks, and the good players can accomplish this with balls hit at various speeds.

As pointed out previously, the roundhouse serve is used infrequently because it is difficult to control. Many coaches feel this serve is easy to field, since it is not curving from side to side. Players can be taught to step straight into the path of these hard-driven serves and pass them quite adequately. However, Stanley Zmuidins of the Newark, New Jersey, YMCA and Gabriel Budisin of the New York Ukrainian Volleyball Club have won many points in the National Championships with their roundhouse serves.