The weight of terminal actions in Volleyball. Contributions of the spike, serve and block for the teams’ rankings in the World League 2005

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to study performance levels in scoring skills in the Volleyball World League 2005, and to relate the results to the teams’ final ranking in the tournament. The sample consisted in 33745 actions, distributed by serve (n=12434), block (n=7200), and spike (n=14111), having been recorded during 72 World League 2005 matches. Both absolute (number of successful and unsuccessful executions) and relative (coefficient of performance, percentage of successful executions and percentage of unsuccessful executions) variables have been considered for the three dimensions (spike, serve, and block). Team ranking has been calculated for each variable. Also, each team’s final ranking in the tournament has been considered. The results permit us to conclude that the spike is the best indicator of success in high level volleyball, but only when considering relative measures. Simultaneously, the number of block points per game proved to be a good indicator of success in volleyball. Finally, the number of serve errors and the percentage of serve points are associated with the team’s tournament ranking. That is, the best teams fail a higher number of serves, but also win more points with this action.