| Coach's Playbook |
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| Dec. '04 WHEN YOU HAVE YOUR OPPONENTS IN TROUBLE, LOOK TO MOVE FORWARD! In your doubles matches, anytime you hit the ball at your opponent's feet or get a lob over your opponent's head, always look to move forward, inside the court. Some of the best doubles players are ones who read the ball and their shots and anticipate and make instinctive moves towards the net. Again, when you RECOGNIZE your opponent is in TROUBLE, either having to dig a low volley out, or running backwards to retrieve a good lob you've hit, anticipate a short/weak shot from them and take a STEP FORWARDS SO YOU CAN GET CLOSER TO TAKING OVER THE NET! One of the most important goals in doubles is to be at the net and beat teams by being aggressive with your volleys. It is extremely difficult to beat a solid team who is constantly putting pressure on their opponents at the net by making them hit passing shot after passing shot and winnng lobs. The team who gets into the net more often in doubles will increase their winning % in their matches, so be instinctive and look for any and every OPPORTUNITY to take a step inside the court, take over the net, and win your doubles matches with your volleys and overheads! |
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| This is a great way for you to work on your:
1. touch volleys 2. angle volleys 3. drop volleys 4. half volleys 5. creative thinking and strategy 6. filtness 7. quickness around the net AND IT'S A TON OF FUN TO PLAY! Play a friend two out of three games to 11 (win by 2) at the end of your practice or workouts 2-3 times per week. For serving, just drop and hit over the net to start and rotate serving every point. Remember, no hard shots, even on the serve; everything must be soft. After a while, if you get really good at mini-tennis, adjust your boundaries to make it tougher by playing with only one set of service boxes. For example, play a cross court game from one deuce service box to the other deuce service box or play a game from one deuce service box down the line to the opposite ad service box. There is not as much movement or fitness involved in this particular game, but it forces you to be more accurate with your "mini" shots and volleys. ** Bob and Mike used to play Mini-Tennis everyday for 15-20 minutes at the end of their practices while coming up through the juniors and in college. They still love to play and we do implement it into our workouts throughout the year. |
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| Jan. '05 Play Mini-Tennis to work on your touch Want to improve your touch/feel around the net? Need to work on your drop shots? Playing mini-tennis will help you develop and improve this aspect in your game, which will make your a more complete and dangerous player out there. All you need is a couple of tennis balls, an opponent, and the service boxes. It's just like playing a drop hit baseline game with the whole court, except you are limited to the service boxes only. The only rule is you cannot hit any hard shots or winners with pace, whether its a volley or groundstroke. You can hit winners, however it must be with feel and touch shots! |
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| April '05 The stronger server should SERVE first! In your doubles matches, you always want the stronger server of the two teammates to start out the match (and every set) serving first. It is important to get off to a good start, so you will want to have the player with the better serve to start and give you the best chance of holding that first game out of the shoot. Next, you will want the stronger server of your doubles team to serve first so that as the set/match goes on, this person will be serving more games. For example, if Theresa and Amy are playing together in their doubles match and Amy has the better serve of the two players, then Amy should serve first to get them off to a good start and hold serve in their first service game. Next, by Amy serving first, she will be the one that serves more games then her partner, Theresa. If Amy holds that first game, and then every player on the court holds their serve until Amy and Theresa break at 5-4 to win the set 6-4, then Amy would have served 3 times and Theresa 2 times. So, when you are out there playing your doubles matches and are spinning your racket or flipping that coin to decide which team will serve and receive, it is very important to communicate with your partner and decide who is the stronger or better server on that day, so you can arrange for him/her to serve first, get off to that great start, and serve more often throughout a match! |
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| More Doubles Tips for the Doubles Player by Philip Farmer |
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