In all our years of teaching doubles to adult, competitive players we are always amazed when we watch clinics or practices. Most of what is being worked on is irrelevant, non-productive and will never help players be better match players. There is a disconnect between what people practice and results in matches and that's why so many players are frustrated with their results even though they spend a lot of time and money on their lessons and clinics. Today we're going to help you with some special tips that are simple to implement and are guaranteed to give you not only better match results but a better understanding of the game which will lead to more enjoyment.
You better work on serve and return all the time. The average point lasts fewer than 4 shots total, which means your team needs to make two shots on every point to be successful. One of those first two shots will always be either the serve or return yet we almost never see players practicing these shots in a clinic. Think about it, is it possible for your serve or return to be too good? Can you execute these shots well under pressure? Do you have enough variety on these shots? The answer in almost all cases is no! Almost every drill you do must include these shots! You're either practicing them or using them in game situations.
Stop working on your groundstrokes. If you're hitting groundstrokes in doubles there are a few things we know:
* You can't have more than one player at the net and that player isn't doing anything but watching balls go by and over them.
* You're hitting hard which means you need to hit deep since you can't access all the angles of the court with groundstrokes. This means you're hitting the ball where it's easy for your opponent to get to.
* You have to hit high so the opposing net player gets a better chance to pick it off.
* You're giving control of the net to the other team.
"Form" doesn't matter. Please stop worrying about what your strokes look like and focus on being accurate and consistent. You can win with the strokes you have right now! You've lost to players with inferior strokes so better strokes isn't and can't be the answer! How you hit the ball matters...where you hit the ball matters more!
Learn to use touch on your returns and volleys. If you want to win matches you need to put your opponents in difficult situations and limit their ability to hit shots that give you trouble. That means short, angled, low returns (http://www.theprevidisystem.com/index.php/blog/previdi-terminology/168-s-a-l-short-angled-low), offensive lob returns as well as angled volleys and half volleys. If you put your opponents in "jail" (http://www.theprevidisystem.com/index.php/blog/previdi-terminology/169-put-them-in-jail ) you and your partner will have a great chance of dominating the net and controlling play.
Practice and learn "plays" like other team sports. In all team sports the key to success is having a plan and implementing that plan seamlessly in a game or match. In tennis, even at the recreational level, we allow the players to freelance and play randomly. When there is no plan, we spend all of our time reacting instead of acting. At The Previdi System we practice playing points in all situations every day. We want all of our players to be interchangeable so that there's never any confusion regardless of who your partner is. We don't worry about our opponents, we make them worry about us. We impose our will on them and make them react to us. We have enough variety to keep them off balance while making sure we are rock solid in our ability to play points effectively.
As you can see from this article, being a successful match player is not complicated, it just takes a lot of repetition and commitment. Servers, returns, touch, angles, lob and "plays". It's all on our website. www.theprevidisystem.com. Good luck and feel free to reach out to us for help or with feedback.