STRATEGY- planning your defensive and offense. Determining a plan that you think will be effective against your opponents. Who will you be serving? Will you be blocking? Analyzing the conditions and planning a strategy to take advantage of and to deal with the conditions. Analyzing your opponents abilities and tendencies. Talking to your partner and determining what you will be doing as a team.

Conditions. Playing conditions often have a factor in your strategy. Is it windy and what direction is the wind blowing? Does the angle of the sun make it hard to see? These factors can make one side of the court more advantageous than the other side. If you have a choice of which side of the court to start the game from, then choose the better side. Often this is the side that the wind is blowing towards, since it is to your advantage to serve in to the wind.

Opponents. Your defense shoulld take into account the tendencies of your opponents. If they don't spike the ball, then you probably don't need to block. If they frequently do cut shots, then you should plan to make sure the cut shot is covered defensively. If one opponent is a poor at passing the ball, then you might want to focus on serving that person.