Sunday, March 8, 2009

Beach Volleyball Shorter Court

A beach volleyball court is a meter shorter and narrower than an indoor volleyball court. This means that the court measures 16 meters by 8 meters. This is the case with any court where there are only 2 players, whether it be sand volleyball or grass volleyball. If there are 2 players per team then the size of the court is smaller. I know shorter and older players hate this, but that's the way it is. It's not 1982 anymore which means that the points are always rally scoring and the court is smaller when 2 people are playing. It's too easy for unskilled players to win points and even games when the court is huge like an indoor court. Playing on a smaller court means you have to be better in every aspect of your game. You have to be able to serve better because there is a meter less on each side of the net. You have to be able to hit (spike) a lot better because you will most likely hit too wide or too long on a shorter court. It just takes a different skill level to play on a smaller court, but the adaption has to take place.
There are too many tournaments that i've seen where people are still using the big court size to play doubles. This makes no sense. I see tournaments where the highest division (open) is played in sand on smaller courts while the rest of the people play on grass with huge courts the size of football fields (the indoor court size). It's time for all the old folks and players with no hops to suck it up and start playing the sport how it's supposed to be played.... on smaller courts. I know you learned how to play volleyball indoors and you feel comfortable with all that extra area for your shanked or spatched balls to land in on the other side. But, this is outdoor volleyball now so you have to abide by all the rules. It's like being a great tennis player and then trying to transition over to ping pong but you want to play it on a table the size of a tennis court. It takes all the skill out of the game because the ping pong player now has to play on an oddly sized playing area.

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