Serve Like a Long Jump: When jump serving in vollyeball, can you contact the ball in front of the end line?

Question

I had this crazy idea of combining a long jump with a jump serve. I know you can't step in front of the end line before jump serving, but can you jump from behind the line, float past it, and contact the ball? I couldn't find anything in the FIVB rules prohibiting it. With the court 30 feet deep, a skilled athlete might be able to nearly reach the 10 foot line (with an appropriately deep toss) before contacting the ball. Instant ace! Also: Do any professional players attempt this?

Answer 1

When you do a jump serve, as long as you take off behind the end line, you can make contact with the ball up by the attack line if you can jump that far (exaggeration I know, but thats the point lol). When jump serving you are supposed to contact the ball in front of the end line, you want to be drifting intot he ball and be closer to then net so you can get the ball down faster. If you watch good jump server's you will see then land well inside the court when they do it.

So you can jump as far as you can...but timing the toss itself might be more difficult then the actual jump lol

I would pay money to see someone be able to do it as far as you are suggesting, all the best, and if you ever try it...GET IT ON TAPE lol

Answer 2

you have to jump before your toe touches the baseline, but it doesn't matter where you contact the ball. But don't arch your back too much, because i pulled a muscle doing that! :)

Answer 3

Good men's jump-servers do broad jump when they serve. The majority of good jump-servers contact the ball on or over the endline.

What you are talking about though would not be very effective. All broad jump with little height would not be very good. However, if you mix it kind of like you do for a back row attack, then it can be effective.

I have spent A LOT of time working on this part of my jump serve. It is not easy. The distance in to the court you want your toss depends on your jumping ability, so it will differ from person to person. I try for 2-4 feet in. My vertical is about 29 inches.

Good luck getting this down. It is definitely not easy.

Answer 4

In the age of rally scoring where your (or your team mates') errors give the other team points I'm not sure this would be effective. You can contact the ball anywhere within the court if you take off behind the endline but in the process of learning how to do what you describe and putting it into use would be time consuming to say the least.

Generally I teach my kids to perform a task with the minimal possible movements necessary to accomplish the task at hand. The biggest problem I see with your description is this - if you are trying to make contact say even 10 feet inside the endline your toss and approach are going to have to be higher and longer increasing the chances of something going wrong. The result will be a service error. Generally speaking as a coach if my team can serve aggressively and side out well then I want a minimum of one ace per service error knowing we can make up the difference with offense. If you as a server give me one ace and three errors at the line you won't serve for me very long.

Just a thought.

Answer 5

According to FIVB rule 12.4.3 (USAV rule is the same):

"At the moment of the service hit or take-off for a jump service, the server must not touch the court (the end line included) or the floor outside the service zone.

After the hit, he/she may step or land outside the service zone, or inside the court."

In simple terms, you can broad jump into the field of play, but may not step onto the playing surface before contacting the ball.

Technically, you could perform a broad jump, but understand that not many humans can broad jump 20 feet, which is approx. (give or take a few inches) how far you would need to jump to reach the ten foot (3 meter) line.

This is not taught because of the margin for error. If a player were to broad jump that far, the height of the jump would be about 7 feet from the endline which would not give a server much advantage at all. Also, broad jumpers do not jump very high, hence the reason they call it "broad jumping" There is too much margin for error as well.

Practice it if you will, but I'm afraid you might come to the same conclusion. Who am I to tell you you can't do something? :)

Best of Luck

Answer 6

Yes, you CAN contact the ball in front of the end line.

Well, "long jump serving" might not be realistic, as a 20 ft jump would normally need 30-50ft approach, and I would have to assume the player could still reach the ball at 10ft high to spike it. Adding to the difficulty of "Long Jump Serving", the player would have to do "long toss" to get the ball travel to the desired spot to be hit. Normal toss would be straight up, or a little 5-degree forward, while your toss would be 40-degree from the end line and 60-degree if you could open up the gym and take a 50-ft approach... and the player has to do it himself (with no assistance).

After all, it is good that you keep getting "crazy idea"s. One of them would eventually come true, I believe.

Answer 7

as long as you take off behind it you're good :)