Analysis of factors that influence the attack in high level male volleyball

Abstract

Analysis of factors that influence the attack in high level male volleyball The aim of this paper was to analyze the first sequence of actions in volleyball matches, in order to verify the influence of some selected factors - service reception, net position to where the ball was set (settingwhere), kind of setting (setting-which), and attack destination - upon dependent variable, the attack result. The analysis was made in twenty high-level male volleyball matches - seventy-seven games. The service reception was assessed from a scale proposed by EOM and SCHUTZ (1992a), which varies from "zero" (mistake) to "four" (perfect reception), but those assessed as "zero" needed to be discarted because they did not create any influence upon the attack. The net position to where the ball was set was described from a net division in three parts: position 4 (left attack), position 3 (middle attack), and position 2 (right attack). The kind of setting was categorized from KATSIKADELLI's (1995) suggestions, where sets were classified as first tempo, second tempo, and third tempo, back court attacks, and second balls from the setter. The attack destination variable aimed to distinguish balls hitted against the block, slow attacks, balls which passed by the block and reached the opponent court, and balls which were returned without an attack action. Dependent variable, attack result, was assessed from an adapted scale of EOM and SCHUTZ (1992a), and varied from "zero" (mistake) to "three" (kill). In order to analyze data, it was chose a bidimensional descriptive statistics where independent variables were crossed with the dependent variable. This produced four tables, which allowed the description of attack result in function of other variables. Further, a nominal politomic logistic regression was applied, in order to verify the influence of selected factors on the dependent variable. The model created from this regression analysis shows that basically two factors had some influence on the attack result: service reception and attack destination. These factors primarily indicate if the rally went on after the first attack action.