The Rules of Volleyball

The Court

The game is played on a volleyball court 18 meters long and 9 meters wide, divided into two 9 m × 9 m halves by a one-meter wide net placed so that the top of the net is 2.43 meters above the center of the court for men's competition, and 2.24 meters for women's competition (these heights are varied for veterans and junior competitions). There is a line 3 meters from and parallel to the net in each team court which is considered the "attack line". This "3 meter" (or 10 foot) line divides the court into "back row" and "front row" areas (also back court and front court). These are in turn divided into 3 areas each: these are numbered as follows, starting from area "1", which is the position of the serving player: The court is seperated into 6 positions, with each one of the 6 players on the court occupying one of the positions until rotating.

The Ball

FIVB regulations state that the ball must be spherical, made of leather or synthetic leather, have a circumference of 65–67 cm, a weight of 260–280 g and an inside pressure of 0.30–0.325 kg/cm2

Game Play

Each team consists of six players. To get play started, a team is chosen to serve by coin toss. The team who won the coin toss begins to game by serving. The opposing team is on defense now and they begin their general set up of "bump, set, spike" combinations. That is, someone on the team (who is now on the offence because they are in control of the ball) passes (bump) the ball to the setter, who sets the ball to an attacker, who spikes the ball in hopes of getting a point. The defensive team can try to "block" the ball by jumping with their hands in the air in hopes of getting the attackers spiked ball to hit their hands, reflect backwards and they win the point. If the block is unsuccessfull, that team is now on the offense and they set up their "bump, set, spike" play. The game continues in this manner, rallying back and forth, until the ball touches the court within the boundaries or until an error is made. The most frequent errors that are made are either to fail to return the ball over the net within the allowed three touches, or to cause the ball to land outside the court. Other common errors include a player touching the ball twice in succession, a player "lifting" the ball, a player touching the net while attempting to play the ball, or a player penetrating under the net into the opponent's court. There are a large number of other errors specified in the rules, although most of them are infrequent occurrences.

Scoring

Depending on the league, scoring differs. Highschool level volleyball has one game set up of best of 3 sets. The first two sets go to 25 points, and if a third set is needed it only goes to 15. Any other volleyball game is best of 5 sets, with the same idea but only the fifth set is to 15.

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