Serving: Threading the Impossible Needle

I was watching the World Championships the other week. Quite a lot actually. I found the tournament quite enjoyable, thank you. Even if the standard was not very high. And yes, I did think Italy deserved to win, and that the Polish result was perfectly reasonable, not the least bit a ‘failure’. But I digress.

The match I wanted to talk about was the quarter final between Italy and Belgium. Spoiler Alert… Italy won the match. 25-13, 25-18, 25-18. There was not one moment after the first whistle when Belgium had a chance to win the match. Italy played flawless volleyball in every facet of the game. None of that is particularly new or interesting.

Watching the match, I was struck by one thing; the impossible task faced by the Belgian servers. From the start of each set they were behind on the scoreboard. And as each set went on, the lead increased and Italy seemed to get better and better. So each successive Belgian server went to the baseline with the an essentially unsolvable dilemma¹, the internal monologue of which was some version of “We need a breakpoint now if we have any chance to get back into the game. I need to make a strong serve. But if I make an error we won’t win a point and will have no chance to get back into the set. So I need to serve with some control. But if I make a serve that is too easy, they will sideout because they are playing too well. What should I do?”

My memory² of how this played out in real time was a serve sequence that went something like:
– tactical serve, sideout by Italy with prejudice
– strong serve, error
– tactical serve, impressive sideout by Italy
– strong serve, error
So it went, as each server wrestled with the game situation, the previous server and their own demons to try to solve the dilemma. I really felt for the servers. Their’s was a truly impossible position.

The same situation plays itself out in matches played every day. It is a function of the structure of the game. There comes in nearly every set a moment when the serving team must create a break point chance RIGHT NOW because there are only a limited number of chances. And as long as the balance of the game lies on the side of the receiving team servers will be faced with the same dilemma, with the same consequences. It is really an impossible needle to thread. Not just for server. Perhaps also for the sport.

1. I am aware that a true dilemma is unsolvable. It just sounded better like this. ↩︎
2. We all know that memory is fallible which is why we should always check with the video. But in this case, small variations between memory and reality don’t make a difference to the story. ↩︎