Hi, I had an argue with one of my colleagues regarding whether you can strike a serve (note: not block, but strike). Now I know that you are not allowed to block the ball which is higher than the net. But what about such situation:
The server makes so called "baloon" serve (striking under the ball, when the ball goes very high with low pace toward the end on the opponent's court), and the opponent's player strikes the ball back (by jumping or not jumping depending on his height) toward another team like he would strike his own serve. Would that be a fault? The referee would somehow have to determine if the ball was above the net or not, but that's hard to determine as the horizontal distance between the net and the ball would be big (almost half court). Or the height of the ball compared to the net does not matter in this case?
Thank you.