If you have clicked on this link you already have a, probably, strong opinion on the topic. So I want to be clear from the first (second) line exactly what this article is NOT about. It is not about the spectacle of volleyball. It is not about teaching volleyball. It is not about educating spectators and fans about the game. For the record, I have an opinion on all those things, but they are different articles.
This article has one single goal, to answer the question ‘Do serve errors impact the outcome of a match negatively?’.
The best place to start is with actual matches that have been played, preferably a lot of matches.
I took the entire data set of the 2025 Volleyball Nations League, 117 matches in all. 18 of the top teams in the world participated, and each played at least 12 matches. We can reasonably assume that the matches were representative of men’s volleyball at the highest level. I then uploaded the matches into Science Untangled so we can do some analysis. The Volleyball Reporting app, includes the possibility to determine Win Indicators, i.e. how different statistical standards impact winning and losing.
The following chart represents the number of sets played and the number of serve errors per set. Green and red show whether a set is won or lost.
The eyeball test reveals that it looks remarkably even all the way through the range. The app also provides the option to set a particular level and the win probability is calculated. In the chart above the level is set at eight (8) serve errors per set. Eight serve errors occurs infrequently (only 5.6% of the time) but the team making 8 or more errors still wins over a third of the time.1
What happens if I check the difference in serve errors? Surely that would show something. The chart below shows the difference in serve errors.
If I set the standard at four (4), i.e. four more serve errors than the opponent, that the team still wins 40% of the time.
‘How can this be? You can’t just give away points’.
Firstly, this is what actually happens. It is not a trick of data. If what happens doesn’t fit an expectation, then it is necessary to review and revise the expectation.
The explanation, in many / most cases is maths. In a volleyball set, the number of sideouts won (i.e. points after the opponent’s serve), is equal for both teams, plus or minus one. It is inherent in the structure of the game. The difference in any set is the number of break points, i.e. points won on serve. We know that after every break point, the same team serves again. More break points equals more serves. Do you see where I’m going here? The team that wins the set has more serves and therefore has more opportunities for serve errors. For example, Team A wins 25-20 and has 25 serves while Team B has 20 serves. Both teams have 20% serve errors. Team A has 5 serve errors, Team B has 4 serve errors. Maths.
Maths dictates that serving more errors in a given set is not just possible, but indeed likely. The more one serves the more total errors.
After that we can talk about volleyball being an extremely complex interaction of multiple skills and situations performed under pressure with massive time constraints by humans with all their foibles. We can talk about the difficulty of scoring break points and the necessity (or not) of serving with high. But first we have to acknowledge maths.