Mastering Doubles Play in Challenging Wet & Windy Conditions
Yesterday was a challenging day for our Ladies Team 5 Badge players. The conditions were tough with wet, heavy balls and strong, gusty winds.
Despite the difficulties, it turned out to be a great learning experience. Playing doubles in such challenging conditions required strategic adjustments to maintain performance.
Here’s a summary of the key points we discussed in today’s training session:
Essential Skills
– Ball Watching and Early Shot Preparation: Crucial for handling the unpredictable ball movements in windy conditions.
Adjusting Your Strategy
1. Early Preparation and High-Percentage Shots:
– Prepare early to maintain control over your shots. Wind amplifies errors, so avoid risky, low-percentage plays.
– Aim for the middle of the court to minimize the wind’s impact on direction and reduce unforced errors.
– Play closer to the baseline initially to handle heavier balls and adjust your ‘Happy Position’ based on the wind direction.
– Be ready to cover more ground due to the wind’s unpredictability. This may involve slight adjustments in your regular positions.
2. Serve and Return Tactics:
– Use more body serves and target areas less affected by the wind.
– Position yourself to account for the wind’s effect on the ball’s flight and be prepared to move quickly to adjust.
– Use topspin (down wind) or slice (into the wind) on your serves to cut through the wind and reduce the chances of the ball being blown off course.
– Focus on serve placement over power. Target your opponent’s weaker side to increase the chance of errors.
3. Net Play:
– Heavy balls make it much harder to hit passing shots, so playing at the net can help you control the game.
– Be ready for sudden changes in ball trajectory and use more aggressive poaching to capitalize on weak returns.
– Communicate effectively with your partner to avoid confusion and make the most of opportunities created by the wind.
4. Volley Adjustments:
– Keep volleys firm and controlled. Avoid delicate touch shots which the wind can easily disrupt.
– Focus on positioning and anticipation, moving to the ball rather than waiting for it.
5. Shot Selection:
– Safer Shots: Prioritize high-percentage shots like deep cross-court rallies. Heavy balls are less responsive, so avoid risky shots.
– Effective Lobs: High lobs can be particularly effective in the wind, disrupting your opponents’ rhythm and exploiting their positioning.
6. Attitude:
– Stay Mentally Flexible: Embrace the advantage the conditions can create for you and adapt your game plan as the wind changes.
– Flexibility and a positive attitude are key to staying effective.
Adapting to wet, heavy balls in windy conditions involves making adjustments. Emphasize safe shot selection and effective communication with your partner.
By integrating these strategies, you can turn the wind to your advantage and increase your competitive edge in doubles matches.
Doubles Strategy: Serving Team on Baseline
On Saturday, an opposing team created an interesting challenge for our local team by using an unusual doubles formation: both players stood on the baseline when one was serving.
Here’s how you can counter this strategy and take full advantage to control the points right from the serve:
1. Take Control of the Net: Since both opponents are on the baseline, you and your partner can dominate the net, taking control of the middle of the court.
2. Receivers Partner Moves to St. Andrews Position: Your partner should immediately move into the threatening St. Andrews position, ready to intercept any shots and apply pressure.
3. Receiver’s Return Options:
– First Serve: Go for a deep return across the court. This helps to involve your partner and set up the point in your favor.
– Second Serve: Be creative. Target the weaker player, especially if they have a weak backhand. Hit a deep cross-court return to pull the server wide, or go for a short return to put pressure on them. Alternatively, hit straight down the line and follow it to the net.
4. Watch Out for Lobs: These baseline pairs often have a good lob. If your return is weak, be ready for your partner to get lobbed over. Stay calm, reset the point, and maintain your positions.
By using this strategy, you can turn this unusual formation into an advantage for your team and control the points from the outset.
Here’s the link on our strategy page.
Finding a Way: de Minaur Grinds Out Three-Hour Clay Battle in Rome
Alex de Minaur just won a thrilling three-hour win on the clay at the Foro Italico, taking down the tough Felix Auger-Aliassime to make it to the last 16 in Rome.
After a rocky start and losing the first set in a tie-break, Alex turned things around big time to clinch the match 6-7 (2-7), 6-4, 6-4.
He faced some tense moments in the final set, even letting a 3-1 lead slip away, but he broke back in the ninth game and served out the match.
Alex shared after the match, “Felix is really tough on clay, and he came in riding high on confidence, so I’m stoked about how I kept my cool and stayed positive throughout. There were moments I could’ve sealed it earlier, but hey, I regrouped, and I’m super happy with how I handled it.”
This win against a top-20 player on clay is a big deal for Alex, marking only his second time pulling it off in 13 tries!
The Importance of Sticking to Your Tools During Match Play
In tennis, just like in any skilled craft, each stroke you’ve developed is like a unique tool in a toolbox. Each player possesses a distinct set of these tools—various strokes, spins, and tactics—each honed for specific situations on the court.
It’s critical to recognize that, during match play, trying to alter these tools in the heat of the match play is akin to a carpenter attempting to turn a hammer into a saw mid-stroke. This usually leads to mistakes because each tool (or stroke) is designed for specific tasks and has been refined through practice to function optimally in those scenarios.
For example, consider your serve, a foundational tool in your kit. It’s a stroke used to start every point where you have control, and its effectiveness can set the tone for the entire rally.
During a match is not the time to tweak or change the mechanics of your serve. If midway through a game you find yourself dissatisfied with your serving performance, remember that this isn’t the time for fundamental changes. Instead, focus on implementing simple rituals that you’ve practiced, such as bouncing the ball a certain number of times, setting your stance, and visualizing the serve before execution. These rituals create consistency and focus, leveraging your current skills under pressure.
It’s completely natural to feel the urge to adjust when things aren’t going perfectly. However, more often than not, sticking with your well-practiced routines and using the tools you’ve developed will yield better results under match pressure.
If you truly feel that a change is necessary, the appropriate time for this is during the off-season, not during a match. Here, you can spend ample time making adjustments without the immediate pressure of competition. Remember, modifying any fundamental aspect of your stroke will take weeks or months to solidify.
During match play, trust in the tools you have, and try to use them to their fullest potential to get the best out of your game!
Crucial Point & Games
In tennis, the latter stages of any game and any set, especially from the ninth game onwards, are critically important due to the scoring structure and the psychological dynamics involved. This phase of the set is pivotal for building or maintaining momentum.
And let’s not forget the drama of tiebreakers! And how to handle those pesky negative thoughts!!
We have updated our Psychological Strategy pages to include these key stages and games, ensuring you’re well-prepared for these crucial moments.
Coach Tim
The Tennis Whispherer is pleased to welcome Coach Tim!
Tim was born in Sydney but journeyed with his family to the United States in the late 1970s, where his passion for tennis blossomed in the competitive junior circuits of the Missouri Valley.
Throughout his collegiate tenure, Tim honed his skills at the Muir Tennis Academy, a cradle for top-tier US junior talent. Having returned to Australian shores, Tim’s zeal for the game remains undiminished. His dedication to teaching mirrors his commitment on the court, striving to unlock the pinnacle of performance in every student he coaches.
Running Down Lobs
Running down a lob in tennis demands not just physical agility but also sharp mental acuity and refined technique. For advanced players like Axel and Anthony, who typically employ a semi-western grip for their ground strokes, integrating specific grip adjustments into their response to lobs can be crucial for maintaining both defensive resilience and offensive potential. Here’s how to masterfully run down a lob, with special considerations for players using a semi-western grip:
General Strategy for Running Down Lobs
1. Anticipate and React Quickly: The moment you discern a lob, swiftly evaluate its trajectory. This rapid assessment and movement towards, but not directly under, the ball are fundamental to positioning yourself optimally for the return.
2. Side Movement: Veer diagonally towards the side of the lob’s path rather than retreating straight back. This approach not only keeps the ball within your field of vision for better judgment but also mitigates the risk of the ball landing behind you—a common pitfall when running directly backwards.
3. Get Behind the Ball: Strive to position yourself slightly behind the baseline or where you anticipate the ball will descend. This setup, akin to preparing for a ground stroke, affords you greater control over your return by allowing for adjustments based on the ball’s speed and bounce.
4. Lift and Carry Through: Employ a low-to-high swing to propel the ball back into the air, ensuring a high finish to your swing. This not only facilitates a deep return, compelling your opponent into a defensive stance but also gives you time to reposition for the next play.
5. Aim High and Deep: Your lob return should aim to drive your opponent backward, complicating their aggressive shot-making. Achieving depth and height with your lob can be a tactical maneuver to reclaim point control, particularly against net-assertive opponents.
Special Considerations for Semi-Western Grip Players
For players wielding a semi-western grip, such as Axel and Anthony, Coach Tim outlined the essential adjustments to manage lobs:
1. Grip Adjustment for Lob Returns: The semi-western grip, while beneficial for generating topspin, requires modification for lobs. Slightly altering the grip or the racket face’s angle by using your wrist prior to the lob can make a significant difference.
2. Open the Racket Face: Prior to the return, ensure the racket face is moderately open to counterbalance the semi-western grip’s tendency to close the racket face. This adjustment is pivotal for getting underneath the ball, particularly from stretched positions or outside the usual striking zone.
3. Finish Skywards with Follow Through: Highlight a follow-through that ascends skyward, propelling the ball high and deep into the opponent’s court. Visualize the wrist action akin to “drying your fingers,” as in basketball, to facilitate the necessary lift and depth on the lob. This technique not only aids in depth and height control but also in buying crucial time for repositioning.
Incorporating these nuanced strategies and adjustments, particularly for semi-western grip users, enriches a player’s capacity to hit lobs effectively. It transforms a defensive scenario into an opportunity to regain and dictate the point, offering an offensive edge even from the back of the court.
Where you stand on the doubles court really, really matters!!!
Where you stand on the court to start the point in doubles really, really matters!!!
FOCUS: Positioning of the Returner’s Partner.
The Returner’s partner is by far the most challenging position to play on the doubles court. The other three players all get to hit the ball before they do. The Returner’s Partner will often react to what somebody else has done instead of attacking themselves.
When the server is hitting their 1st serve, it is imperative to be neutral or defensive with mindset and positioning. A quality first serve will pressure the returner and bring the Server’s Partner into play.
So, let’s look at the following scenario and pinpoint why the serving team won the point.
Herbert is serving, and his partner, Mahut, is at the net. Peers is returning, and his partner, Polasek, is positioned INSIDE the service box.
This is where the percentages immediately drop for the returning team to win the point – even before the first serve has been hit. Polasek is standing in a highly aggressive position with two feet inside the service line. That’s more acceptable when facing a second serve, but it’s rolling the dice against a first serve.
Why? Reaction time.
If this first serve goes in and Peers is under pressure, Mahut will be swarming the net and looking to put the ball right at Polasek because he won’t have enough time to react to hit the ball back over the net.
Herbert makes a quality first serve out wide to Peers. Now, Peers possesses an excellent backhand return, but look how his feet are together on this occasion, and he is reaching for the ball.
He has a tough shot. How do we know? Look at Mahut at the net. He is picking up on all the same signs and knows it’s tough for Peers to beat him down the line. So he is cutting to the middle of the court early to go and put the ball away.
Source: Brain Game Tennis
Rafter Would Chop Today’s Deep Returners
Pat Rafter Would Chop Today’s Deep Returners
I was sitting courtside in Miami last week watching Andy Murray battle Daniil Medvedev. Sitting next to me was Tim Henman.
Our discussion initially focused on Andy’s resurgence and how he is feeling better and better on court. Medvedev won the match 6-4, 6-2, pulling away from Andy after an even start to the match. We also chatted about the ultra-deep return position of Medvedev and other current players who like to stand a loooong way back to return serve.
The obvious counter-attack to that is serve and volley.
Tim (and I) felt confident that players such as himself and Pat Rafter would have a “field day” serving and volleying against current players that stand 5+ metres behind the baseline to return serve. We discussed how effective Rafter would have been hitting a heavy kick serve out wide in the Ad court and having so much time to get to the net before the returner even made contact with the ball.
It turns out Carlos Alcaraz completely vindicated Tim’s strategic sentiments just a few days later.
Alcaraz defeated Casper Ruud 7-5, 6-4 in the Miami final, winning all 11 serve and volley points he played. Ten of the 11 were heavy “Rafter-Esque” serves out wide in the Ad court. He ate Ruud’s lunch with this key strategy, oftentimes finding Ruud 6+ metres behind the baseline trying to counter Alcaraz rushing straight to the net.
Good luck with that!
The Hawk-Eye graphic below shows Ruud’s return location vs. Alcaraz in the final. Yellow dots represent 1st serve return hit points. Blue dots are 2nd serve return hit points.
2022 Miami Final: Casper Ruud Return Hit Points
Ruud made contact with one 1st serve return more than seven metres behind the baseline. It’s almost impossible to win the point from there against a serve-and-volleyer.
Source; Brain Game Tennis
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Sep 8, 2024
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