The rally ends when the ball hits the ground, when its first contact with the set is the rim or the legs, when it bounces on the net more than once, or when it never comes back off the net at all. Everything else is still live, including two shots that look illegal and are not.
Those two are pockets and roll-ups, and they are the calls beginners get wrong most often.
Written by Jakub Popluhar, roundnet coach since 2019, 1,000+ coaching hours, former national coach of Belgium.
The rulebook lists a longer set of illegal returns, but four of them cover almost everything that happens in a garden:
There is a fifth for tournaments: a ball that lands outside the outer boundary without the other team touching it first is a loss of point. A ball on the line is good. That rule does not apply to the serve, and it does not apply in the park because you have not drawn a boundary.
A pocket is when the ball passes close to the rim and its trajectory changes without ever touching the rim. It comes off sideways and it is unreadable.
During a rally that is completely legal. If you pocket someone, that is their problem, and if they pocket you, the same applies.
On the serve it is not. A serve that hits a side third of the net and moves sideways in that way is a fault, because a receiver has no chance at all. That asymmetry is deliberate: the sport wants rallies, and it does not want a serve that cannot be returned by anyone.
A roll-up is a shot that lands completely on the netting, rolls into the rim and then comes off the net. It looks like a mistake and it is written into the rules as legal.
Beginners call this one wrong nearly every time, because it feels like a rim hit. It is not. The ball landed on the net first, which is all the rule asks for. The rim contact came afterwards and does not matter.
There is a circle 100 cm out from the centre of the net. The last hit of every possession has to be started from outside it, and if the hitter touches inside that circle while hitting, including on the follow-through and on the momentum afterwards, the team loses the point.
In the garden you can ignore this for weeks. The moment somebody starts standing over the net to hit down, you will want it, because it is the only rule stopping the tallest player from ending every rally.
One consolation for beginners: you may walk into that circle whenever you like. The restriction only applies to the player making the final hit of a possession.
Contact with the set by any player during a rally, rims, legs or netting, is a loss of point for that player's team. This includes equipment that falls off you and lands on it.
It feels harsh the first time you dive, catch the rim with a shin and lose a rally you were winning. It is also the rule that keeps the net where it started, and without it the game would be a wrestling match.
Ground, rim or legs on the first contact with the set, a double bounce on the net, or a ball that never leaves the net.
The ball passes close to the rim and changes direction without touching it. Legal in a rally, a fault on serve.
Yes. It lands on the net first, so the rim contact afterwards does not matter.
A 100 cm circle around the centre. The final hit of a possession must start outside it.
Loss of point for your team, deliberate or not.
Only on a marked court, at 8.5 m. It never applies to the serve.
Two calls to remember and you will be right more often than most people at the park: pockets are legal in a rally, and roll-ups are legal full stop.