How To Serve In Volleyball
Score More Aces and Points With Your Serve

Learn the three mental volleyball serving strategies we teach our Vegas volleyball boot camp players to increase point scoring abilities from the service line

How to serve in volleyball by using these serving strategies. These are important because the serve is the only skill you control by yourself in volleyball.

Choose one or more of these three mental serving tactics to increase your ace scoring chances the next time you go back to serve the ball.  

One of the first mental serve strategies in how to serve in volleyball is to remember to THINK about making a tough serve, not an easy one. 

From now on when it's your turn to rotate back to zone one on the court to serve, as you are walking back to the base line you should be mentally forming this serving strategy.

"I'm going to place the opposing team in difficulty by making an aggressive serve"

You should make up your mind that you are going to go back and serve an aggressive ball to a certain spot or to a certain player on the court.

Why do you want to develop a tough serve?

Once you've learned the basic in how to serve in volleyball you want to take advantage of your serving opportunity, which you alone control...and make it difficult for the opposing squad to easily run a play against your team.

The easier your serve is, the easier it is for the opposing team to run a point scoring play. The tougher your serve is the harder it is to run a point scoring play against your team.

You don't want to make an easy serve because you don't want to make it easy for the other team to score against yours. 

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"Think about what you want to do with your serve and how you want to do it"           (Coach ApChap)

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If you don't think about scoring a point when you serve, then of course you won't do it.

But if you don't do it, then you are passing up a golden opportunity to help your team score an easy point.

When learning how to serve in volleyball you should  imagine that you are attacking the ball with your serve.

Think about it!

When you hit the ball, you are in an aggressive state of mind, right?

Well, just like you are in an aggressive state of mind when you spike a ball you want to recreate that same state of mind when you go back to serve a volleyball.

So when I say that you should be attacking with your float serve I am describing a mental process that you must adapt first----even before you prepare to physically do any serving.

As play develops, have an idea as to who the weak passers are on the other team.

We teach our Boot Camp players strategies on how to serve in volleyball that include talking about what they see happening on the court all the time. 

Not only do they have to see what's happening they have to remember what happened in past plays so when the time comes they know how and when they can exploit the weaknesses of the opposing team.

Here some things you should identify and look for as your game continues.. 

-who are the weak passers on the opposing team

-who looks nervous and insecure in serve receive

-who just made the last passing mistake

-which players can't get over the mistakes they made and show how disappointed they are in themselves

-what areas of the court are difficult for certain passers to pass from

-what areas of the court are difficult for the setters to set from

As I've travelled to various Las Vegas high school matches and have coached JV boys and girls teams I know that many coaches like to tell their servers where to serve. 

This way, its the coach that establishes where and how to serve in volleyball matches depending on what they know about the opponent. 

But if your coach doesn't "call the serve" you can pick some targets to look for from the list of things I listed above. 

I mentioned earlier you first want to mentally decide to attack with your serve.

To make that easier here are some thoughts and reminders that you can ask yourself before serving the ball.

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”I don’t want to serve the opposing team a ball that’s easy for them to receive and run an attack off of."

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"I want to serve a ball that puts them in a difficult situation where I force one of the passers or to have to move out of their comfortable passing position to pass my tough or well-placed serve."

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"I want a specific passer to mess up or shank the ball or if I can't force them to do that then at the very least I want my serve to force the opposing team to give our team an easy ball that we can defend or pass and run an attack against them.”

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"I can do better than just getting the ball over the net. if I want to make varsity I need to learn to be strategic and aggressive with my volleyball serve to increase the chances of scoring aces for my team." 

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Usually one, all or a version of these thoughts should pass through your mind at during practices and then in your matches as you make your way back behind the service line to prep for your serve.

Do the mental stuff first as you are walking back to the service line to prepare for your serve.

You want to start practicing these mental serving strategies  of

• adopting a more aggressive attitude
• attack with your serve
• decide early where and who you are going to serve

when you’re doing your serving drills so that your game time serving will automatically be tougher which will increase the chances of scoring points and aces with your serve. 

Follow me on Instagram @coach_apchap to improve your game even faster!

I share alot of individual, partner and easy-to-do volleyball serving drills we do in class with my followers.

Many of these volleyball practice drills you can do at home by yourself or try at your next practice with your teammates.

If you're a B team or JV player trying to make varsity next year...your goal should be to complete 1000 reps a day of at least three of the basic skills on your own...volleyball passing, serving and setting should be at the top of the list. 

Your three options are: 

1. You can learn more about Serving by visiting the related links below.                            
2. Follow the suggested reading on our Sitemap page Learning How To Play (Sitemap)
3. Or visit the pages in the How to Play Volleyball section in the drop down menu at the top of the page to get started. 
4. Before leaving this page Say "Hi" to Miss Tattoo the Tiger wearing the #9 jersey below.  Miss Tattoo is the starting defensive and serving specialist for the All Beast VolleyBragSwag All Star team.

More Links:

Three Volleyball Hitting Strategies To Use To Sideout or Score

How To Spike A Ball Strategically Like Pro Players Do

Meet Tatoo the Tiger, Serving Specialist on VolleyBragSwag's All Beast Team

Planning to play on a middle school volleyball team?
Click to register!    

Learn more about serving

Follow me on Instagram @coach_apchap to improve your game even faster!