When a player sets a ball, she wraps his hands around the curvature of the ball. The greater surface area the player's hands cover, the more control she has on the ball. Once the ball is set, she uses one hand to hit the ball at a certain spot on the opposite side of the court. She exerts the largest possible force on the ball so she can have control over the direction of the ball. The net force on the ball is its mass, .26-.28 kg, times the acceleration. Throughout the game, the mass of the ball remains constant, but the acceleration and direction change frequently. Because the ball moves in the direction that the force and is constantly displaced, work is applied. According to the work-energy theorem, the total work required to accelerate the ball from rest to speed is equal to the amount of kinetic...