Second Serve
By JIM ALBRECHT
PTR Instructor
Mid-summer, and our tennis activities are still going strong! Enthusiasm for both the game and our involvement is peaking about now. It is natural for players at all levels to look critically at their recent activities on the court to evaluate their performances in light their desired accomplishments at the beginning versus what was actually accomplished to date.
So, let's reiterate the guidelines we examined back in April to give a frame-of-reference within which we can compare our own personal performances on court.
Three fundamental rules for tennis doubles team play!
Number one: Get your first serve in! It does not have to be hit at light speed…it does, however, need to go deep in the appropriate service box (deuce or add courts) with at least moderate spin on it.
Number two: Never, and I mean never, hit anything to the opposing net player.. always try to hit your returns away from the net player!
Number three: When you get into trouble lob, lob, lob! Make sure that your lob is hit high and deep, preferably down the middle to your opponents' baseline. Try for both height and depth, but in any case do not sacrifice height. Hit it high! (When it comes down, it ought to have frost on it!) Remember also that you do not have to wait 'til you are in trouble to lob, you can do so at any time. (Usually catches your opponents asleep).
Play as a team! You must do everything you can to encourage and help your partner to succeed.
This is your primary responsibility to your partner. Encourage your partner! Have complete confidence in your partner and make sure that they know it!
Do not coach your partner, your role is one of support. You are not there to instruct your partner on how to play tennis. Remember that on a doubles team no one is in charge, no one is the boss! Believe it!!
As a team you must do everything you can to help your opponents lose! Do absolutely nothing to help your opponents to win! Always attack the weakest player on the opposing team.
This will tend to divide them and cause them to react individually and not as a team! When you make an error, do not hold an autopsy or post-mortem, either aloud or in your head.
Make no excuses, but (just like an Etch-A-Sketch,) erase it from your conscious mind and go right on to the next point!
Do not show, by facial expression, body language, or verbal comment aloud, any displeasure you may be feeling about anything which has transpired on the tennis court. Remain up-beat and confident at all times. Do not let your opponents divide you; keep your cool and play as a team!
After each point, whether won or lost, (and this is important!) both you and your partner congratulate each other by touching hands, high-fives, or touching racquets, or in some other appropriate way, to show appreciation for each others efforts, even though you may have lost the point, game, or match!
Additionally, after each point played you and your partner should join each other behind the base line for a brief conference as to how you plan to win the next point!
Finally, you and your partner are responsible to call all balls that land in the court or are directed to the court on your side of the net!
Do not allow your opponents to make any calls for you! It is your responsibility and yours alone to do this.
Remember that a ball is not out until it is called "out" and continues in play until it is called "out!"
In a noisy environment, use hand signals along with your verbal call to indicate an "out" ball.
This is the courteous thing to do and if your opponents are not doing so ask them to please include a visual signal with their "out" calls.
So, in reviewing our activities over the past few months, how many of us can say that we have included any of these guidelines in our activities on the courts this season?
Have you? How and with what results?
And to what extent did they help your game, if at all?
If you have not included any of these guidelines in your tennis activities, and did not at least give some of them a try, why not?