Beach Volleyball: History, Rules, Skills and Winning of the play

Beach Volleyball

Beach Volleyball is a team sport, and each team has two players. Both of the teams play this game on a sand court divided by a net on the beachside. The goal of each team is to send the ball from their side to the opponent’s side ground. Members of both teams prevent the other team from putting the ball on their ground.

Both teams are allowed up to three touches to return the ball to the net. Any player cannot touch the ball again after giving a block touch to the ball.  After making a block touch, the player has only two touches left before hitting the ball. The game continues until the ball falls on the ground of the opponent’s court. The winning team got the chance to start the new rally.

History of the game:

The game is originated on Waikiki beach in 1915, while the modern two-player game is originated in California. This game has been an Olympic game since the 1996 Olympics.

Rules of Beach Volleyball

  • Players in the game are only allowed touching the ball for three times before the ball is returned across the court.
  • There is no fixed position for players which states that any player can move to any side without any restriction.
  • Hand touches, tips and dinks are the number of moves and hits that are categorised as illegal.
  • Players are allowed to cross the net from below and this is not a foul until it tampers the game of the opponent.

Skills to Master

  • Serve: It is an act of serving the ball to the opponent by striking it through hand or arm behind the rear boundary.
  • Pass: Pass is among the three allowed contacts. In this volleyball, it involves two techniques that is forearm pass. It is also called as bump. In this technique, the ball touches the inner part of joined forearms at waist line, and the ball is passed with fingertips.
  • Set: This is the second of the three contacts allowed in the team. The purpose of this skill is to position the ball for a third hit attack.
  • Attack: The beach volleyball attack can be any one of the two choices. It can be either a spike or a shot. Spike involves hitting the ball hard with one hand in a downward trajectory whereas shot is a soft attack in order to place a ball into an open court area.
  • Block: It is a direct technique to score points for the team. This can be done by directly stopping and directing the ball in the opponent’s court. This is known as block and it earns direct point in the game.

Winning in the game

For winning a match of Beach Volleyball, the team has to win two sets. Each set contains 21 points or it can be 15 points in the final set having two clear points.

To get this, we can consider an example if the score reads out to be 21 and 20 on respective sides. Then, there will be a new set which will continue unless a team leads with two points.