Tennis Holiday KIS Coaching – Improve your doubles Part 5

Carrying on from part 4 last week where we looked at the three basic doubles position if you haven’t read part 4 please click here to have a read. This week I want to have a look at the one up one back situation. I think we all know that in an ideal world we wouldn’t really like to be in this position but at the same time I think most of us would agree that at a recreation level (even up to top club level) the one up one back situation happens a high percentage of the time. Our 80/20 rule is one of the keys to unlock the door and turn your team in to the offensive pair at the net and put the other team on the back foot. There are 3 ways to turn a neutral/defensive position in to an attacking one:

1. Holding your ground at the back of the court, waiting for a short ball to pounce on
2. Hitting a strong shot to put your opponent in a defensive position and following in behind your shot
3. Ghosting in behind a high deep shot without your opponent seeing you

The 80/20 rule is all about your recovery position. Its simple 80% of the time before you hit the ball you should be either holding your ground or moving forwards to strike the ball, 20% of the time you will have to move back. You have to recover to an appropriate ready position that allows you to do this.Lets imagine your opponent hits a ball that you need to move forwards to but not short enough to allow you to follow it in to the net. After you hit your shot you need to recover back (how far back depends on a number of factors). If you don’t recover you will find yourself out of position for the next shot likely having to move backwards as you strike the ball. If you recover to your correct 80/20 position this will allow you to hold your ground/move forwards for the shot rather than being on your back foot. 90% of you reading this blog post are going to be well aware of what i mean by a recovery position but I would challenge you to ask yourself do you think you work hard enough off the ball to maintain a good recovery position? We believe that a sloppy recovery position leads to being out of position a high percentage of the time.