Beach Volleyball Tournament Rules

Beach Volleyball Tournament Rules

Match Start:

Round robin: Teams are to get to the court early and have coin toss by the Court Official. Winner chooses from Serve, Receive or Side.

Playoffs: Teams are to get to the court early and have coin toss by the Court Official. Winner chooses from Serve, Receive or Side.  Teams will switch sides after every game.

PLAYERS

  • 6 vs 6 coed
  • A min of 1 female will be on the court at all times,
  • A max of 4 male players will be on the court.
  • If teams have 4 players they must have one female. (3 males 1 female)
  • If a team only has one female they have to play short handed (1 female, 3 males).
  • Teams must have 4 players on the court or they will forfeit the match, one of whom must be a female.
  • All players at the court must play.  Teams can not play with less than 6 if they have 4 males and 2 females eligible to play at the courts.
  • Everyone on the team plays. All eligible players on the team must rotate into the game and keep the rotation for the duration of the game.
  • Males can rotate with males and females with females, or teams can keep a constant circular rotation as long as the male female rules above are followed.
  • All players must be registered with Niagara Rec Sports in order to play.
  • Based on the above rules the following male/ female combinations are allowed,
    extra players will sub on to the court in an order that meets one for the following:

4 males 2 females
3 males 3 females
3 males 2 females
3 males 1 female
2 males 4 females
2 males 3 females
2 males 2 females
1 male 5 females
1 male 4 females
1 male 3 females
0 males 6 females
0 males 5 females
0 males 4 females

THE SERVE

  1. Server must serve from behind the restraining line (end line) until after contact.
  2. Ball may be served underhand or overhand.
  3. Ball must be clearly visible to opponents before serve.
  4. Served ball may graze the net and drop to the other side for point.
  5. Front row players can not attack the ball until the ball has dropped below the top of the net.
  6. Blocking a serve is not permitted. Blocking of a serve is defined as contacting the ball near the net on service reception when part of the players body has extended above the height of the net.
  7. Serves are capped at 5 consecutive per player. After the fifth serve, rotate to the next server.  Serving order must be followed.

BLOCKING

  1. Unlike standard Beach rules, a block will NOT count as a touch. If you block a hit and the ball remains on your side, you still have 3 more touches to get the ball over.
  2. Back row players may not participate in Blocks

ATTACK

  1. Attack On a serve, it is NOT permitted to return (attack) the serve to the serving teams court on serve reception (first contact) when the ball was completely above the net height on attack contact.
  2. You may play the ball off any part of the body.
  3. You may not attack a ball in the opponent’s space (OVA net rules will be in place).
  4. Unlike standard beach rules, open hand attacks/tipping shall be permitted.
  5. A back row player must be behind the player directly in front of him/her in order to execute an attack.

NET

  1. Players are not to make contact with the net.  Slight touches by the hair, nets pushed into a player by the ball or nets blow into players by wind are not infractions.
  1. There is no center line rule in beach volleyball, therefore, crossing under the net into the opponents space is not an infraction unless it causes interference (such as, but not limited to contact with an opposing player).

Time outs: There are no timeouts.

SCORING – Round Robin

  1. 25 minute games
  2. Straight points no limit
  3. If the game is tied when the end of game whistle blows teams play a final serve to determine the winner.
  4. Rally scoring will be used.
  5. There will be a point scored on every score of the ball.
  6. Offense will score on a defense miss or out of bounds hit.
  7. Defense will score on an offensive miss, out of bounds hit, or serve into the net.

SCORING – Playoffs

  1. Best 2 out of 3 games
  2. Games are to 21 win by 2 no cap.  Tie Breaker is to 15 win by 2, no cap.
  3. Rally scoring will be used.
  4. There will be a point scored on every score of the ball.
  5. Offense will score on a defense miss or out of bounds hit.
  6. Defense will score on an offensive miss, out of bounds hit, or serve into the net.
  7. Must win by 2 points.
  8. One minute break between games to switch sides.

Tie Breaker – Round Robin

  1. Overall Points
  2. Head to Head
  3. Plus Minus (between the teams that are tied)
  4. Plus Minus (overall for the round robin)
  5. Coin Toss

Tournament Structure

  • Each team is guaranteed a min of 4 games (could be more depending on the specific tournament structure).
  • Games will be 25min long straight points.
  • Games are scheduled every 30 minutes and start right on the hour and half hour, leaving each team 5 minutes to get to the court and be warmed up for your scheduled start time.
  • IE, 10:30am game begins right at 10:30am and will end at 10:55, the next game begins right at 11:00pm
  • Playoffs will be best 2 out of 3 games to 21 win by 2.
  • Rock paper scissors will determine who picks side or serve.
  • A horn will sound to indicate the start and finish of each game. If a game is tied you play one final serve to determine the winner.

Late Penalties

  • If one team is at the court ready to play at the scheduled time and the other team is not ready to play, after 5 minutes 5 points will be awarded to the team that is ready to play.
  • After 10 minutes the team that is at the court ready to play will be awarded 10 points
  • After 15 minutes the team that is on the court ready to play will be awarded the win.
  • If neither teams show up after 10min a coin toss will decide the winner.  Pay attention to the schedule and time.
  • Don’t be on the patio and miss your game.

ROTATION

  1. Team will rotate each time they win a serve.
  2. Players shall rotate in a clockwise manner.
  3. After 5 straight points while serving players will rotate.

GENERAL

  1. Officials shall call the lines to the best of their ability but may require the honest assistance of players as view of ball contact is often blocked when there are 6 players on the court.
  2. Officials have sole discretion as to whether they conduct a Ball Mark Protocol.
  3. Team Captains may respectfully request an explanation of an Official’s call but shall not delay the match in so doing and must do so respectfully.
  4. Maximum of three hits per side.
  5. Player may not hit the ball twice in succession (A block is not considered a hit).
  6. Ball may be played off the net during a volley and on serve.
  7. A ball touching a boundary line is good.
  8. A legal hit is contact with the ball by a player body which does not allow the ball to visibly come to a rest.
  9. The ball may touch any part of the body.
  10. IF two or more people contact the ball at the same time, it counts for a hit each, unless it’s a block, which can be a combination block considered as one contact, which is not considered one of the three “hits” on each side.

WEATHER

  • We play rain or shine.
  • If there is lightening at the courts the referee will call the game at the courts at that time.
  • If there is lightening teams can wait to see if it passes.

Player Eligibility

  • All players must register online and sign the online waiver in order to be eligible to play in the league.
  • Once registration is complete (fully) the name of the registrant will appear under the team name on the roster section of the website.  Only people that are on the roster can ply for the team.
  • If teams are caught playing with unregistered (illegal players) they will loose their existing game.
    Team captains are responsible to ensure all players are eligible to play.

Process for challenging player eligibility

  • All players must carry some form of picture ID and be ready to show the referee or the opposing team captain if asked.
  • The team captain of the team challenging the eligibility of an opposing team’s player(s) must pull up the team rosters on the phone and approach the opposing team’s bench and speak to the team captain regarding the player in question with the roster.  This process does not stop the game form being played.
    If the team captain refuses to do so the team will get an automatic loss and the player in question will be removed from the court immediately.
  • The team captain (of the team in question) must verify the player in question is in fact on the roster and ID must be shown by the player to verify they are in fact the person listed on the roster on the website.
  • If the player is found not to be on the team roster and/ or does not show ID to prove they are who they say they are, notify the referee and they will be removed from the game and the offending team will take a loss for that game.
  • Teams have until the beginning of their first game of the tournament game to register players.  All registrations are time stamped in our back end.

Niagara Rec Sports reserves the right to remove or disallow any player from the league at any time.  No refunds will be given if/ when players are removed from the league.

Niagara Rec Sports reserves the right to add, alter, remove rules either verbally or on any rules page at any time as we deem fit, any rule changes will be effective immediately.  Rules discussed at the team captains meeting are to be considered part of the league rules.

For other league rules visit this page.

CODE OF CONDUCT

  • Understand, appreciate and abide by the rules of the game.
  • Respect the integrity and judgment of game officials and NRS staff.
  • The referee has final say in all calls.
  • Respect your opponent and congratulate them in a courteous manner following each match whether in victory or defeat.
  • Be responsible for your actions and maintain self-control.
  • Refrain from using foul or abusive language.
  • Have fun!