The overhead pass and setting

1Why this matters

The forearm pass is safe, but it is hard to aim precisely. The overhead pass, played with the fingers above the forehead, is the most accurate touch in volleyball. When it is the team's second touch, used to place the ball for an attacker, it is called the set, and the player who does it is the setter. A good set turns a scrambled first pass into an attack.

2The overhead pass, step by step

1. Get under the ball early. Move so that the ball will drop just above your forehead. Face your target.
2. Hands up early: raise both hands above your forehead, elbows bent and pointing out.
3. Make the window: spread your fingers and turn your hands so that the thumbs and index fingers form a triangle-shaped window. Look at the ball through it.
4. Bend your knees as the ball arrives.
5. Contact the ball with the pads of the fingers and thumbs, never the palms. The hands are relaxed but firm, like a bowl.
6. Extend knees and elbows together, pushing the ball up and towards the target, and finish with your arms stretched towards it.

3Clean contact: what the rules allow

• The ball must be hit, not caught or thrown. If it rests in your hands, the referee calls a catch (or lift) fault.
• Both hands must touch the ball at the same moment. If the ball comes off one hand and then the other, it is a double contact fault. (The rules are gentler on the team's first contact, such as receiving a hard serve, where the ball may touch the body more than once in one action.)
• No player may touch the ball twice in a row, except after a block.

4The set

• The setter's home is near the net, a little to the right of centre, facing the left of the court.
• The usual set goes high, about 1 m away from the net, above the attacker's hitting arm, so the attacker has time to approach and jump.
• A good setter faces the same way for every set, so the opponents cannot guess where the ball will go.

5Drills

• Catch and set: catch the ball in the window above your forehead, check your hand shape, then push it up. This is for learning only; in a game it would be a catch fault.
• Self-sets: set the ball straight up, 1 m above your hands, 20 times in a row.
• Wall sets: set against a wall above a chalk line 3 m high.
• Partner sets: set back and forth over 3 to 4 m, then over a net or rope.
• Pass, set, catch: A tosses to B, B forearm-passes to the setter C, C sets high to D, who catches at the attacking spot.

Worked example: choosing the team's setter

The coach tests two players. Each sets 20 balls from the setter's position; a set counts as good if it drops into a hoop at the attacking spot on the left of the court.

Mugisha is more accurate, but in a match each of his 4 faults would give the opponents a point. His effective success is 15 − 4 = 11 useful sets, compared with Ingabire's 13. The coach chooses Ingabire as setter and gives Mugisha drills to clean up his contact.

Practice

Solution. The pads of the fingers and thumbs, not the palms.

Solution. Face the target before the ball arrives, and finish with her arms and body extending towards the target.

Solution. A catch (or lift) fault: the ball must be hit, not held or thrown. The other team wins the point.

Solution. So that the opponents cannot tell from her body where the ball is going, which makes it harder for them to block.

Solution. 18 ÷ 24 × 100 = 75%.