Rethinking Serve-Receive Patterns

Former men’s Olympic coach Doug Beal revolutionized serve reception by installing serve-receive patterns using only two passers, Karch Kiraly and Aldis Berzins. Karch and Aldis were exceptional in many ways. They were great athletes, mentally tough, and had exceptional technique. Coach Beal took advantage of those individual abilities and developed a system allowing his best passers to receive the most passing opportunities while simplifying the reception pattern.

The key takeaway from Beal’s innovative approach to serve reception was that he:

1. Considered the abilities of the two primary passers, both technically and mentally.
2. Did the quality of the opponent’s serve allow two passers to cover the court effectively?
3. Beal developed his entire offense (the swing offense) around the two passers who received the serve from any part of the court and could attack various areas of the net.
4. Beal’s system fostered the concept of “specialization” of skills, allowing players to not focus on all aspects of the game equally, but to get good at a few aspects.

There is no “best” serve-receive pattern; there are only trade-offs when comparing the available options. What are you getting versus what you are giving up? Creatively, Beal developed an offensive system to take advantage of his players’ abilities. He passed the creative baton to future generations of coaches, but our creativity and thoughtfulness about serve-receive have hit a wall.

The type of reception pattern being used should be correlated to the quality and type of serves, how the servers might strategically impact the options for the offense, and, of course, the abilities of the passers. From the girls’ club level to the collegiate level, most teams receive serve with three players distributed evenly across the court. A three-person reception may be the best pattern for a specific team or when defending a specific level of the serve, but does it merit universal application for all teams, at all levels, and against all servers?

Reception patterns have undergone significant evolution in volleyball. They have transitioned from five-person W-patterns to four players in a U-pattern, three passers aligning straight across the court, and, finally, with the 1984 men’s Olympic team using a two-passer reception pattern. This evolution was based on the changing serve quality, transitioning from standing float serves to more challenging jump spin and float serves. Also, the players’ size, athleticism, and abilities have changed significantly in recent years.

Although the court dimensions are the same for men’s and women’s teams, the difference in size between male and female players, coupled with the lower net, means there is more court area for the women to defend in serve-receive and defense. Throw in the increased velocity of the serve in the women’s game, and the coaches of women’s teams might consider alternative options for serve-receive patterns and examine the approach being taken when teaching the skill at a younger age.

In 2015, the USA U-18 team played Italy in the finals of the FIVB World Championships. Paula Egonu was ripping jump serves (see video). The elapsed time from server to passer shows that the passer had around 0.7 seconds to react. Generally, the reaction time for players is around 0.4 seconds. It is easy to see that the passers had too much court to cover with insufficient time. Placing another passer into the pattern would have been more effective in reducing the court area for each passer. Along with Egonu’s outstanding serve, other servers were equally impactful with their serve. Generally, flat serves with a high velocity that stressed a three-person pattern

Combined with the increased velocity of the serve, I see more collegiate women’s teams successfully implementing more short serves into their game plan. These strategic short serves are designed to accomplish a couple of things. Serving to a middle hitter might impact the quality of their hitting approach, coupled with the fact that many middle hitters have never spent much time receiving serves. (more on that later). It also challenges a primary passer to identify the short serve and move in to pass. Lastly, a short serve can impact the attack approach for frontrow and backrow attackers.

The photo below demonstrates the passer’s effectiveness relative to the point of ball contact relative to the passer’s body. The data was taken from the U-18 World Championships for women. Although not an encompassing study, it reflects where the passers had success and challenges when receiving the serve. The most problematic areas for the passer are short or deep serves. Serves that mandate lateral movement with the feet or arms didn’t present a significant difference in passing performance. I would guess that these numbers reflect current collegiate or club-level reception.

If passers have the most difficulty with short and deep serves, doesn’t a three-person pattern expose these areas more than other reception options?

In one of the international tournaments for the USA U-18 team, we played Thailand, which received a five-person W-pattern in every rotation. Thailand’s sideout offense proved to be very challenging to stop. First, the five-person pattern addressed the short/deep reception challenges. The two back-row passers started deep and did not have to worry about moving back to receive deep serves. Anything at their shoulders would be out of bounds. The front-row passers effectively passed the front two-thirds of the court and didn’t worry about deep serves, as their teammates would cover that area. With five passers, each passer had a limited amount of court to cover. From reception, the front-row attackers would attack the entire net at a fast tempo. Again, there are trade-offs as with more passers, there are more seams between passers, so verbal and body language communication is essential.

Another option is to receive with four passers in a U-pattern. A four-person pattern will effectively cover the short serve and free up your quick attacker. If an outside hitter moves into zone 3 to pass, there must be an offensive option so this type of serve doesn’t take that passer/hitter out of the offensive pattern. The two backrow passers pass any deep serve.

Why are coaches seemingly “married” to a three-person reception pattern? First, coaches are often pressed to find three good passers, much less four or more good passers. Should our age group coaches take more responsibility to provide reception opportunities to all players regardless of their position?

A few takeaways:

• Beal’s concept of player specialization is a great way to accentuate players’ positive abilities while hiding their skill weaknesses. However, without guardrails, especially at younger ages, we can develop players who can only do one or two things on the court. With a limited skill set, creativity and system options become limited.
• I encourage coaches to work with teams on multiple reception patterns to defend against various types of serves.
• Our game needs more players who are comfortable with serve-receive. Coaches of younger players should expose all their players to serve-receive. Specializing reception patterns and skills at a young age serves developing players poorly.
• In two–, three—, and four-passer patterns, the middle hitters should be responsible for receiving short serves in their area. Doing so will protect the backrow attacker and an outside hitter.
• There is always the option to shift or flatten a pattern to give the best passers more court area.

Not all passers will have the same abilities. Coaches can “tweak” any pattern to ensure their best passers contact the ball the most. Since serve-receive is a very important component to an effective sideout offense, I would encourage coaches to be mindful of how they organize their system. At the younger ages, I would consider a W-pattern or a U-pattern to offer all the players a chance to develop their reception skills. The more good passer a team possesses, the more creative the coach can be.