Abstract
Volleyball coaches and players go at great lengths to find competitive advantages against opponents. Many hours are spent practicing, studying game films, and strategizing in the hopes of finding valuable predictors of success. It is widely accepted that the primary predictor of team success lies in players ability to both serve effectively and receive serve effectively (McGown, Fronske, & Moser 2001; Papageorgiou & Spitzley 2003). Thus, it is imperative that players and coaches are aware of the best serving strategies to utilize during the course of a match. Though many studies have attempted to investigate serve success predictors such as mode of serves, force of serves, and rotational velocity of serves, there is a lack of research that identifies the success rates of serves to various locations on the court. This study investigated the success levels of serves to zones 1, 5, and 6. A total of 120 serves to each zone (total n=360) were quality analyzed using a 0-3 scale (USA Volleyball, 2009). The results were then compared using an analysis of variance (p= 0.05) to determine if there were significant differences among the means. It was found that serves to zone 6 (m= 2.34) were received significantly easier than serves to zone 1 (m= 2.11). Additionally, it was found that serves to zone 1 were received at a significantly lower percentage than serves to zones 5 and 6.