Volleyball Tournament Play Rules

Competing in tournaments is a common part of participation on a sports team. Tournaments allow for teams to compete to be champions in the course of a day, or a weekend, rather than an entire season. Rules for a tournament will vary being determined by the organizers; however, the US Olympic Committee has offered guidelines to aid organizers in running fair tournaments.

  1. Match Rules

    • There are two primary areas of scoring which must be clearly stated to all teams in a tournament. The first is the method in which points are awarded. One style mandates that a team must have served the ball to win a point, and winning a rally off an opponent's serve simply wins the right to serve the next point. In the now universal rally scoring, however, the serve still changes sides should the non-serving side win a rally, but they are also awarded a point. The second area is sets. Matches can be won either by winning a single game, also known as a set, by winning two sets first, or winning three sets first, depending on the tournament.

    Pool Play

    • Pool play is often used for the first stage of a tournament. Teams in the tournament are broken down into groups, ideally of 4 or 5 teams, and play a series of games in which every team plays every other team in their group once. From this pool play, the top teams in each group are advanced onward to participate in the elimination rounds.

    Elimination Rounds

    • The elimination rounds of a tournament are single elimination matches in which the winning side advances to the next round, and the losing side is removed from the competition. Most elimination rounds will begin with a group of teams equal to an exponential value of 2, such as 4, 8 or 16, as this allows for even brackets in which every team must win an equal number of games. Other options can be used, however. For example, a 20 team tournament may elect to break teams into 4 groups of 5 teams, with the top team in each group earning a bye to the second elimination round. The second place team in each group is then paired with the third place team for another group, with the winners of those matches advancing to face the group winners.

    Officiating

    • The USOC recommends a system of officiating in which teams who are participating in the tournament, but are not affected by the match currently being played, are called upon to referee the matches as they are played. Teams from one pool will be assigned to referee games in another pool when they are not playing their own matches. In the elimination rounds, teams which lose an elimination game are responsible for officiating the next match.

    Tie Breaking

    • Tie breaking procedures are used in the pool play phase of a tournament when two teams finish with identical records. The order of tie-breaking options is first to compare records in matches featuring the tied teams, then the teams' set records if the tournament features matches won by winning multiple sets, and finally point differential. Point differential is only to be used to rank two teams who will both advance, however. If two teams are tied in overall record, head to head, and set record, and only one can advance, they must play off in a 15 point set with rally scoring.

    Additional Rules

    • Additional rules can be implemented by tournaments in order to account for unique circumstances facing the event. In the event of rule changes, the rules should be clearly laid out for all teams to see before the event begins. Teams entering into a tournament should contact officials before the event to confirm any special rules which will be used.