Where Should You Direct Your Serve to Win Rallies?

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tl; dr

• At the Women’s Super League level, Women’s London League level and Men’s London League level, it is generally best to serve to the middle (zone 6 and 8) and to zone 1 for the highest rally win %, regardless of where you serve from.

  • You can serve to zone 9 also from all zones except when serving from zone 6

  • You can also serve to zone 5 from zone 6 or when serving from zone 1 or 5 in the Women’s Super League

• At Men’s Super League level, it is best to serve to zone 5 for the highest rally win % regardless of where you serve from.  The exception is when you serve from zone 5, where it is best to zone 1.  Serving to zone 6 is the second best option from any serve origin zone.  

• Across all levels, your best bet to win the rally is to serve from zone 1 to the middle (zone 6 and 8) (see chart below).  In London League, you can also serve to the right side (zone 1 and 9).  In the Super League, you can also serve to zone 5.  

Introduction

The serve is the only action in volleyball where success and failure are determined solely by the server.  There is the technical execution of the serve and there is also the strategic aspect of the serve.  I already found that serving to the middle (zone 6 and 8) have the highest rally win % in four out of the five competitions I looked at (see link).  I also found that serving from zone 1 has the highest or second-highest rally win % in 8 out of the 10 competitions I looked at (see link).  So does it mean we should serve to the middle zones (zone 6 and 8) from zone 1 to get the highest rally win %?  

In my original study into serve directions (see link), based on 2,787 service attempts in the Women’s Super League, 2019-20 season, I found it was best to serve cross-court from zone 1.  The service average was high when served from zone 1 to zone 1 (2.35) and if it goes midcourt to zone 8 (2.36) or sharp (2.27) or short to zone 3 (2.45) then that was good too.  However, what will the data show if we use the better performance indicator of rally win % rather than service average (click on this link on the disadvantages of using a service average) and if we increase the dataset to include different competitions?  Will it still show that serving from zone 1 to the central zones (zone 6 and 8) is best or is it serving cross-court (zone 1)?   Is there another hidden serve direction that can be exploited?  I wanted to find out.

The purpose of the study is to find out which serve direction (where to serve from and serve to) is the most effective in winning rallies and whether this applies across competitions and genders.  

Method

There are five serve origin zones.  Three serve origin zones covers the regular zones of zone 1, 6 and 5.  The two other serve origin zones are in between those zones, called zone 9 (between zone 1/6) and zone 7 (between zone 6/5).  There are nine serve destination zones.  Zones 1 to 6 cover the normal position and zones 7 to 9, cover the midcourt zones.  I have also labeled the three horizontal lines as short (zone 2-4), mid-court (zone 7-9) and deep (zone 5, 6, 1).  The three vertical lines are labeled left-side (zone 4, 7, 4), middle (zone 3, 8, 6) and right-side (zone 2, 9, 1).  Below is a diagram showing the serve origin and destination zones.  

Data is collected via DataVolley.  I will use data from 10 competitions.  The data will be separated by gender and by competition level.  The competition level will be under two general levels – Super League level and London League Level – rather than kept to their individual competitions.  The main reason for this is although each competition level has a minimum of one thousand service attempts, I have to split up those attempts into five serve origin zones and then split it up further into nine serve destination zones.  The result is many of the short and mid-court zones will have less than 10 service attempts, which is too few to make any kind of conclusion.  

Women’s Super League LevelWomen’s Super League | 2017-22 | Team SideOut London | 13,500 Total Service Attempts

There are enough service attempts that I don’t need to mix with other competitions.  

Women’s London League LevelWomen’s London Premier | 2022-23 | Flaming Six Coyotes | 1,098 Total Service AttemptsWomen’s London Division 1 | 2021-22 | Flaming Six Coyotes | 1,201 Total Service AttemptsAll Nations Tournament (Women) | 2022 | Team USA | 1,733 Total Service AttemptsBUCS Tier 1 Women | 2018-19 | City University London | 243 Total Service Attempts

There are some Super League level players and London Division 2 level players in these competitions but the majority of the players playing in these competitions compete or can compete at London Premier and London Division 1 level.  

Men’s Super League LevelInternational Competition (Men) | 2020, 2022-23 | England National Team | 1,830 Total Service AttemptsMen’s Super League | 2019-20 | IBB Polonia London | 2,895 Total Service Attempts

Most of the players in the England National Team play in the Super League and their most-played opponent is Scotland, who can easily compete in the Men’s Super League.  You will also see more jump top-spin servers at this level, which can affect the service stats (click on this link to read more).  

Men’s London League LevelBUCS Premier Men | 2021-23 | UCL Men | 1,903 Total Service AttemptsBUCS Tier 1 Men | 2021-22 | UCL Men | 1,765 Total Service AttemptsMen’s London Division 1 | 2022-23 | Flaming Six Leopards | 1,002 Total Service Attempts

BUCS Tier 1 Men and Men’s London Division 1 are at a very similar level.  BUCS Premier Men is a higher level but it is close enough.

The performance indicator I use to measure serving performance is the Rally Win %.  It is the percentage of service attempts in which the rally was won.  It is calculated as:

Rally Win % = Rallies Won/ Total Service Attempts

Results

Serving From Zone 1

When serving from zone 1, it does look like serving to the middle (zone 8 and 6) has the highest rally win %.  The exception is Men’s Super League level.  It also looks like at the London League level for both men and women, it is better to serve cross to zone 1 and 9.  It could be because it is just safer to serve cross as the serve will still land in if the server is not accurate.  At the Super League level, you can find success at serving deep line to zone 5.  It could be that the servers are more accurate servers so they can serve accurately to zone 5 and take out the front-row outside hitter.  

Serving from Zone 9

It does look like that serving cross-court to zone 1 and 9 from zone 9 is best for all levels except for Men’s Super League.  There, the best choice is to serve line to zone 5.  

Serving from Zone 6

When serving from zone 6, it does look like serving deep (zone 1, 6 and 5) or mid-court (zone 8) is generally best at all levels, with some exceptions.  It looks like serving to the mid-court sidelines (zone 7 and 9) is generally bad.  Again, serving to zone 5 in the men’s super league looks to be best again.    

Serve from Zone 7

It looks like serving to the middle (zone 6 and 8) and line (zone 1 and 9) is best in the women’s game.  Serving line looks to be best at the Men’s London League Level whereas serving cross (zone 5, zone 6 and zone 7) is generally best at the Men’s Super League level.  

Serve from Zone 5

When serving from zone 5, there looks to be a lot of good options to serve to in the women’s game.  In the Women’s Super League, it is probably marginally better to serve cross to zone 5, 6, and 7 while it is marginally better to serve line (zone 1 and 9) in the Women’s London League level.  

Discussion

At the Women’s Super League level, Women’s London League level and Men’s London League level, it is generally best to serve to the middle (zone 6 and 8) and right side (zone 1 and 9) when serving from zones 1, 9, 7 and 5.  One exception is in the Women’s Super League where you can also serve to zone 5 when serving from zone 1 and 5.  When serving from zone 6, it is generally best to serve deep (zone 5, 6 and 1) and middle midcourt (zone 8).  It looks like serving sharp crosses from zone 6 to zone 7 or 9 doesn’t work.  It could be because you can’t create enough angle on the serve from zone 6 to be effective.  

It looks like serving to the middle (zone 6 and 8) is good regardless of where you serve from, reflecting the study into where to serve to.  It is probably because it is a safe serve to execute as it results in fewer errors (you can’t serve wide).  Serving to zone 1 is good too regardless of where you serve from.  It could be because it makes it difficult for the setter as the passed ball is coming from behind them so they need to really open up their body.  While most setters should be able to deal with this, it could tricky enough that they make a few more errors or poor sets, which results in a few more lost rallies.  

The Men’s Super League level is different.  It is best to serve to zone 5 with zone 6 as the second choice regardless of where you serve from.  The exception is when serving from zone 5 where it looks like serving to zone 1 is best with zone 6 still second best.  Interestingly, there are only a few zones in which serves are effective in winning rallies.  It is probably because the level is high enough where the passing is good enough and the first attack is so effective.  There is also the factor that jump topspin serves are more prevalent at the Men’s Super League level, which results in a lot more errors (see link to read more).  

We have a good indication of where to serve to for a given serve origin zone but which serve direction is going to be the most effective?  The chart below shows that when grouped by competition level, it is best to serve from zone 1 as it has the highest rally win %.  The exception is Men’s Super League level but it has the second-highest rally win %.  

Reviewing the serves from zone 1 data (see below chart), you can see that at Super League level for both men and women, it is best to serve to the middle (zone 6 and 8) and to zone 5.  At London League level for both men and women, it is best to serve to the middle (zone 6 and 8) and the right side (zone 1 and 9).  

Conclusion

• At the Women’s Super League level, Women’s London League level and Men’s London League level, it is generally best to serve to the middle (zone 6 and 8) and to zone 1 for the highest rally win %, regardless of where you serve from

  • You can serve to zone 9 also from all zones except when serving from zone 6

  • You can also serve to zone 5 from zone 6 or when serving from zone 1 or 5 in the Women’s Super League

• At Men’s Super League level, it is best to serve to zone 5 for the highest rally win % regardless of where you serve from.  The exception is when you serve from zone 5, where it is best to zone 1.  Serving to zone 6 is the second best option from any serve origin zone.  

• Across all levels, your best bet to win the rally is to serve from zone 1 to the middle (zone 6 and 8) (see below chart).  In London League, you can also serve to the right side (zone 1 and 9).  In the Super League, you can also serve to zone 5.