Understanding Tennis Doubles Strategy
Tired of trying to remember a hundred dos and don'ts
about how to play tennis doubles? Then think of playing the game
as playing a formation. You have three formations to pick from:
the Both-Up Formation, the Both-Back Formation, and the Up-and-Back
Formation. (Australian Doubles and its variant, the I-Formation,
are variations of the Up-and-Back Formation.)
In the picture above you see these formations. On the left you
have the Both-Up Formation and the Both-Back Formation. The Up-and-Back
Formation has two modes. In Offensive Mode, your net player sets
up in the normal net-playing position. In Defensive Mode, he sets
up back at about the service line.
Now, instead of viewing the game as a bunch of shots, view it as
your team playing its formation against the opposition's formation.
This is the strategic view of the game, and it simplifies everything.
There are only 6 possible match-ups, and one of them is extremely
rare -- the Both-Back Formation against the Both-Back Formation.
The common situations are:
- The Both-Up Formation against the Up-and-Back Formation.
- The Both-Up Formation against the Both-Back Formation.
- The Up-and-Back Formation against the Up-and-Back Formation.
- The Up-and-Back Formation against the Both-Back Formation.
Aha! As Michelangelo would say of the creative process thus far,
we have separated the light from the darkness and ordered what was
once chaos.
Okay, we should throw one more situation into the list, because
in advanced play it does occur quite often: the Both-Up Formation
against the Both-Up Formation.
So, there you have it, five play situations to master. You can handle
that.
No, you don't go memorizing a bunch of dos and don'ts for each situation,
a bunch of verbal instructions. Instead, you train your eyes to
recognize the strategic features of the changing play situation.
Those features are of two sorts:
- threats/risks
- opportunities/targets.
Learn to spot them and they will prompt you to act intuitively.
That's when you play your best – when you're playing intuitively,
by just seeing what to do without having to think/remember
what to do. It's the only way to get in the zone.
How do you train yourself to spot and recognize the strategic features
of the play situation? By simply familiarizing yourself with them.
We spot and recognize what is FAMILIAR. It jumps out of the background
to grab one's focus, like a familiar face in a crowd does.
For example, once you learn to spot and recognize the hole in the
Up-and-Back Formation, no one will have to tell you to volley through
it every chance you get. You will do so automatically, like a hunter
pulls the trigger automatically when he or she sees a game bird
rise. No need to think/remember what you're supposed to do.
In the following lessons, you will become familiar with the key
strategic features of the battlefield in tennis doubles. Your ability
to spot and recognize them on court will make the game of doubles
much easier to play, more fun, and more rewarding. You'll like the
feeling of always knowing where to be because you're mentally one
step ahead of the game. It's no fun feeling like a chess piece being
moved around by the game. You'll like being the one making the moves.
It gives you a sense of control.
Simply because now you clearly see what's going on.
