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Jargon buster

Husband and wife: When a serve is sent straight down the middle of the two opponents, in the hope of causing indecision between the pair.

Roof: A block that sends the spiked effort back down towards the opponent’s feet, giving them no chance of recovering it.

Dink: A shot played softly with the fingertips or knuckle, that either loops over an opponent’s block or lands without pace in an open space in the opponent’s court. Similar to a drop shot in tennis.

Tomahawk: An emergency defensive shot where both hands are used to hit the ball high above the head.

Basic rules

Teams of two players seek to ground the ball in the opponent’s half or make their opponents hit the ball out of bounds.

Both teams have three touches to return the ball, and neither player can take consecutive touches. The players can use any part of their body to hit the ball, they just can’t catch or throw it.

Matches are played in a best-of-three-sets format. The first two sets are the first to 21 points, though a two-point lead is needed to win, and in the deciding set it is first to 15.

The players change sides every seven points, or every five in the third set and the two players rotate serve.