Learn the tip in volleyball: when to tip instead of spike, how to make clean fingertip contact and disguise your swing. With milestones and typical mistakes.
What is a tip? The honest answer: You swing as if for a spike, but at the last moment you take the pace off and place the ball with your fingertips over or behind the block. The rules explicitly allow this as long as the ball is hit cleanly and not caught or thrown [1]. The Swiss Mobilesport material describes the topspin shot as a lightly hit, placed attack ball usually played over the block [3].
Why does the feint work at all? Because your opponent reacts to your movement. In a test with beach volleyball players, beach volleyball athletes recognised earlier than novices whether an attack would be a hard hit or a poke shot. They probably read body posture, such as the elbow angle [2]. So your job in the tip is not to be clever but to look the same as in the spike for as long as possible.
Beginners spike too often, even when there is no chance. The association material asks you to decide first in every situation whether you can spike at all and stresses that getting the ball safely over the net matters more than spiking every ball [5]. As individual tactics the tactics material explicitly lists "tip or spike" [4]. Milestone: before 10 sets you can say whether the block stands high and whether the back corner or the short zone is open.
The hand stays open, fingers slightly spread, wrist loose. The ball is played with the fingertips or the middle part of the fingers; in beach volleyball this is called a poke shot, played with the middle finger joints [3]. That is a practical description. What matters is that the ball rebounds cleanly and does not stay in the hand [1]. Milestone: 10 tips on a held ball in which it does not stick.
Toss the ball to yourself and place it over the net into a zone. With a low net or a rope you learn the distance. Milestone: 7 of 10 tips land in a 2-metre target circle.
Now add the approach, take-off and the same arm pull as in the spike. The association material lists a high elbow and a contact point with a long arm above the shoulder as features of the hit [5]. In the tip the arm stays the same until just before contact, and only then do you take the pace off. Milestone: a partner sees you only from the side and in 10 attempts cannot say reliably whether a hit or a tip is coming.
Choose the gap: just behind the block, over the blocker's fingertips or into the deep corner. The opponent has to leave the net and go back. Against the feint the tactics material advises defenders to move their defensive position forward [4], so do not use the tip every time. Milestone: in a 3-on-3 you play 10 attacks, about 3 of them as tips, and at least 2 of those cause a wrong decision by the defence.
In a tip you meet the ball with your fingertips at the net. Stiff fingers in particular are easily overextended on contact with the ball or block. Warm up fingers and wrists. If you land close to the net after the tip, watch the feet of opponents and teammates: in a video analysis of ankle injuries in world-class volleyball most injuries occurred while blocking and attacking, often when landing on an opponent's or teammate's foot [6]. This guide explains and motivates, it does not replace supervised training.
Try the tip first against balls that are set badly. The association material advises forcing a safe attack before a hard one [5]. A tip from a poor pass is a safer option than a forced hit.
Yes. In an attack hit tipping is allowed as long as the ball is hit cleanly and not caught or thrown [1]. If it stays in the hand, it is a fault.
The tactics material lists this as individual tactics: tip or spike [4]. Tip when the block stands high or you cannot hit safely, and spike when a gap is open.
Same approach, same arm pull, same high elbow as in the spike. In a test, beach volleyball athletes recognised earlier than novices whether a hit or a poke shot was coming, probably through body posture such as the elbow angle [2].
Into the gap behind the block or into the corners. This is practical experience. The tactics material advises defenders to wait at the front to catch tips [4], so spread your targets.
Roll Shot: The Slow Attack That Rolls Over the Block