Interactive effects of home advantage and quality of opponent in Chinese Women’s Volleyball Association League

ABSTRACT

Home advantage in sports is a widely analysed phenomenon. The aim of this study was to explore the effect of home advantage and quality of opposition on different technical-tactical performance indicators in the Chinese Women’s Volleyball Association League. A total of 181 matches was observed during two consecutive seasons (2016 to 2018), and the score/excellent and error performances in actions when teams played at home or away in terms of the quality of opposition (higher or lower level teams) were analysed. Comparisons were made using the T test or Mann Whitney-U test, with the standardised difference in means at 95% of interval confidence, and discriminant analysis. The results showed a home advantage effect in matches between teams with the same level. When facing teams with different levels, the stronger team has a higher probability to win regardless of the match location. The technical performance indicators were affected by both contextual variables, especially the scoring indicators (points in serve, spike or block), in favour of teams with higher level and when playing at home. These findings offer usefulness information in order to prepare a competition and evaluate a team’s performance in terms of contextual variables.

KEYWORDS:

• Team sports
• performance analysis
• home advantage
• quality of opposition
• chinese Women’s Volleyball

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Sina Sports and Chinese Volleyball Association for their hard work for Chinese volleyball. This work is sponsored by the Renmin university of China as a project for new teachers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, and the Research Funds of Renmin University of China [50,000rmb]; Renmin University.