The most important part of doubles play is the first ball. The serve and return in doubles are the keys to success, and how you play these first balls will decide your fate. Our Tennis Holiday’s focus predominantly on doubles play, looking at key areas that you can take back to your club and make a real impact in your club matches.
When serving, having a high first-serve percentage is essential to holding serve. You will have better results taking a little pace off the serve and serving 70 percent with less aces or service winners than you will serving 40 percent with 10 aces and 10 winners.
More: In Next Edition of Tennis Holiday KIS Coaching We Will Be Looking At Developing Your Slice Serve
This is because of the mentality of the returner. On the first serve return, a returner is not looking to be as aggressive or offensive. So even when they are not seeing huge first serves, they are more likely to just put the ball in play and less likely to actually do something with it.
This means you are starting on offence 70 percent of the time when serving a high percentage, rather than 40 percent of the time when you are going for the big bomb.
The thought process of the returner will change, whether consciously or subconsciously, when receiving a second serve. Now the opponent is looking to do damage with the return and begin to attack themselves. This means trouble if your opponent has a decent return!
When receiving, the biggest mistake I see is players trying to do too much with the return. This is a singles player mentality and must change when playing doubles
I hope you enjoyed reading this and can take a few of these thoughts in to your next match.
Tennis Holidays are a great way to make real progressions in your game, it is an intense week of learning new skills in the morning and putting them in to practise in the afternoons. Being able to play for 20 hours in one week means that you can really make changes in your game fast! Our Tennis Holidays our suitable for all levels whether you are a complete beginner through to county level players – everyone is welcome!
