So you want to know how to defend yourself against a dink shot, or tip as it’s commonly known these days. I’m going to look at it from the perspective of a coach trying to improve a team’s defense against these types of shots rather than from the perspective of an individual player. With that said, I think you’ll find that most of what I have to say goes both ways.
It starts with the attitude
The first element of defending against off-speed attacks like spikes and rolling shots is to come in with a commitment not to let those types of balls hit the ground. Obviously, the overall goal of your defense is to prevent the ball from landing on your side of the court. However, there is a difference here. Defending against a hard-hit ball is mostly about positioning, while digging a tip is all about chasing. In many ways, the former is passive and the latter is aggressive. An attacking attitude is needed to play good defense against off-speed balls.
positional responsibility
After the attitude comes the positioning. Players with designated liability for tip coverage, if any, are determined by the type of defense a team employs. For example, a rotational defense in which the right back moves behind the screen in an attack by the outside attacker means that the right back is responsible for shots over the screen and into the center of the pitch. In a standard perimeter defense there is no specifically designated end coverage player, so it’s basically up to the player or players closest to the ball to do the digging.
waiting for the shot
This is perhaps the most important part of being good at off-speed defense. Tips, ground balls and the like tend to score more because defenders are surprised than because they’re well positioned. An excellent example of this is setter tosses that score when most teams’ base defense has two players positioned specifically to defend against the first or second passing ball. If those players wait for the setter to undo, they will often make a fairly easy play with the ball. If not, they get caught flat-footed and the ball drops, a source of gray hair for many coaches.
Moving through the ball
As noted above, defending against an off-speed shot is often based on the chase. A player must move towards the ball to make the play on it. In many cases, the player has to run to get the ball and may not be stopped in time to make a good play. In these cases, they must be able to execute a walkthrough excavation to the favored target zone. This is something that requires training for less advanced players, as the mechanics involved are a bit different than the more static normal dig or pass.
When done correctly, with the right attitude and expectations, defending against a tip or other type of off-speed attack can seem pretty easy. Train your volleyball players to have the right attitude, expectations and mechanics and you will frustrate opposing attackers to no end!