Australian Doubles Tennis Instruction

Australian Doubles anyone? Most players think Australian Doubles is just a weird lineup that is supposed to somehow bother your opponents so that the receiver misses the return of serve. Though the chances of a missed or off-target return are a bit greater, the real purpose of Australian Doubles is to set up the opposition switched so that you can easily poach service return.

It is also an excellent serve-and-volley formation for teams that want to play serve-and-volley but are having little success from the normal Up-and-Back Formation.

Check out the four new lessons on Australian Doubles:

Australian Doubles Avenues to Victory
The Australian Doubles Play
Australian Doubles Net Play Tactics
Australian Doubles Serving Tactics

And then, for a review, see this animated tutorial on how to play, and how to defend against, Australian Doubles.

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Learning How to Play Tennis: Strategy and Tactics

If you're a frequent visitor to Operation Doubles Tennis, you know that I advise against the current popular obsession with form, as if excellence in tennis is in discovering and copying the minute "secrets" of Roger Federer's technique.

This advice is nothing new, however. Tim Gallwey was the first to give it in his bestseller The Inner Game of Tennis back in the 1970s. In fact, the leading experts in how to teach the game are in agreement. All I offer is the unique perspective of someone with a background in biology who can explain why our brains are unsuited to learning the way most people try to learn to play tennis.

And tennis isn't the only thing I have taught. I am also a certified and licensed classroom teacher. I have taught swimming, biology, physics, general science, chemistry, English, track and field, and guitar. To all ages, from children to adults. So, I've noticed a thing or two about how people learn.

QUESTION: Why doesn't this knowledge of how best to teach tennis filter down to all the people teaching it? There are many answers. One is that conflicts with certain business models.

There's a similar problem in teaching strategy and tactics. Publishers of how-to and self-help books contribute to it. They, and many who teach subjects like this, mistakenly believe that the average person is intellectually lazy and wants everything boiled down to no-brainer rules of rote, as if to say, "Don't bore me with why: just tell me what to do."

That isn't true. By nature, human beings like to tax a brain cell or two. Only boring people are easily bored. What learners do want is the clarity, conciseness, and concrete visualization that make understanding solid and easy-to-grasp.

What's more, rote isn't easy. It isn't "simplifying things."

Yes, rote rules are no-brainers, but they must be memorized and recalled under fire, which is hard to do. For example, if you try to do physics problems by rote, you must memorize every form of every equation and remember them all under the pressure of a test. It's much easier to just understand, so that you need recall only one form of each equation. It's the same with tennis. To play by rote you must memorize dozens of rote rules and recall the right one under the pressure of each approaching shot. It's much easier to just understand the game so that you simply see what to do and do it intuitively.

Playing intuitively also allows you to get out of your head and into the zone, where your physical performance peaks.

This is why the best instruction on playing the game (strategy and tactics) opens your eyes to this dimension of the tennis game. A vision that not only helps you get the most out of your play so that you win more, but one that also enriches your playing experience and makes it much more interesting. One that enables you to enjoy tennis on a whole new level.

At this new, deeper level, you're no longer just going through the motions of hitting forehands and backhands. Now you're into the game itself.

What does that mean? It means that you're no longer just hitting shots. You are actually really playing the game. Half the fun is figuring out how to win it.

I'll never forget the day my eyes were opened to this hidden dimension of tennis, the dimension of the game itself. It had been there all along; I just never saw it before. The effect was like a revelation, like having a black-and-white movie suddenly take on Technicolor, or like having a two-dimensional painting suddenly become a three-dimensional statue in space. Before that, I had been like a sailor gazing overboard, unable to penetrate the surface of the sea to see the fascinating world beneath the surface.

Until then, like most tennis players, what I knew of tennis strategy and tactics could have been written on the back of a postcard. It was all just words; no mental pictures. My idea of strategy and tactics was to try a little of this and a little of that, with no idea what should work or why. I tried to play by rote — following dos and don'ts I had read in books. I stood where I stood just because everyone stood in that position.

In short, my understanding of the game was as shallow as a puddle. I couldn't see what was going on for myself. Therefore, I couldn't adapt to whatever a cagey opponent's game was doing to mine.

So, stretch a brain cell or two to visualize and understand this hidden dimension of tennis. I guarantee that opening your eyes to it will help you play better, help you win more, and increase your fun and enjoyment of the game.

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Flawed Tennis Form? Or Flawed Tennis Thinking? Part 2

Part 1

There are two ways to swing a tennis racket at the ball. The natural way and the unnatural way.

In the natural way, you focus on the approaching ball, and your conscious mind thinks something like, "Whack that sucker." No more conscious thinking takes place. Your swing is spontaneous. Instinctive. Intuitive. It is being timed, coordinated, and controlled by the unconscious timing/coordinating/controlling centers of the brain. These are the same areas that take care of things like walking, talking, and handwriting - all spontaneous actions that we do without thinking about HOW.

The unnatural way to swing a tennis racket at the ball is by consciously issuing yourself verbal instructions, like, "Get the racket back, step into the shot (or load and explode), watch the ball, bend your elbow, watch the ball, swing low to high, watch the ball, follow-through...."

There is a serious problem with the unnatural way. It takes a huge amount of brainpower. Brainpower to recall and process the language of verbal instructions. Brainpower that won't be available for sensory perception. Result? You won't see the ball as well. Your judgment will suffer. Your kinesthetic perceptions will be dim, and your dynamic balance will be off. You'll have robotic form because you're issuing orders to your muscles the way a robot issues orders to its movable parts. Plus, you can't possibly think through all the instructions that fast. Plus, you are just interfering with the natural process of coordinating and timing your shot. Learning tennis this way will be painful, frustrating, and very slow.

Yet this is the way most tennis players learn! That isn't the way you learned how to walk, talk, or write is it?

Am I saying that you should forgo lessons and just be a hacker? No. I am just giving you another reason why you should not obsess about form.

Here are some lessons on the main site that will help you learn without doing so:
Learning How to Play Tennis
Dynamic Balance
Tips to Improve Your Tennis Technique

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Flawed Tennis Form? Or Flawed Tennis Thinking?

How many times have you seen a tennis player miss a shot and walk back to the baseline taking a practice swing? When was the last time you did this yourself? You're thinking that you missed the shot because of some flaw in your swing, and that's why you're practicing it.

If we could somehow search the brain of every tennis player in the world, we'd find in most the belief that errors are caused flawed form.

If that's true, then you would never miss a shot if you achieve perfect form.

Golfers think the same way. And this thinking is what underlies the common obsession with form in both sports. The "perfect swing" then becomes a sort of Holy Grail that all pursue for as long as they play the game.

It's an exercise in frustration and futility. In fact, players learn learn in spite of, not because of, their efforts to perfect their form.

That's because this thinking is what's flawed. It is NOT true that you miss a shot because of some flaw in your form. No amount of perfecting your form will enable you to play error-free tennis. And there is no such thing as "perfect form."

Tomaz Mencinger has a good two-part instructional article on the subject, The Biggest Tennis Myth that's Hurting Your Game and Why Tennis Players Obsess So Much About Tennis Instruction.

OK, so here's the Big Myth:

If I miss the ball, I must have done something technically wrong (meaning I moved my body parts in the wrong way). Thus, if I can correct that mistake (move my body parts "correctly"), then I will not miss the ball again.

Based on this myth, we tennis coaches have been earning money giving tennis lessons for decades.

Based on this myth, club and professional tennis players have wasted millions of dollars and thousands of hours, all on trying to improve their game. Without much effect, of course...

Read the rest, and next time I'll come back with some thoughts of my own on the subject.

Part 2

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9 Steps to Dominating Tennis Doubles - Great for Coaches

This is the time of year tennis coaches in northern climes begin itching for spring in anticipation of the new season. You can give your doubles teams the edge through the simple program "9 Steps to Dominating Doubles," available at volume discount prices and now available in paperback as well as printable PDF ebook format.

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Improve your Tennis Volley

Need help with your volley? Try the Romanian Volley Drill, as demonstrated by Mike (closer to camera) and Bob Bryan.

Get the details explained and get more help for your volley in the recently updated lesson on How to Volley at OperationDoubles.com.

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Tennis Doubles Signals

Max Mirnyi and Jamie Murray show how they use signals in doubles play. Notice that the system works like that in baseball, where the pitcher (server) has the choice, but the signal comes from the player who can hide it. So, if the server wants a different play, he asks for a different signal.

Beware friends of your opponents stationed behind you though. They could learn your signals and relay them to your opponents.

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How NOT to Serve in Tennis

Just to show that not all the robotic serves in the world belong to women....

OMG.

Hat Tip: Tennis Diary.

Part of this guy's problem is that he opens the racket face on the backswing, and that's what enables him to push (rather than throw) the serve.


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Serve-and-Volley Tennis - Making It Work

Learn how to win with serve-and-volley play in this month's illustrated Wild Card article by me at The Tennis Server.

This lesson is presented in the context of doubles, but everything except the tips at the end applies to singles as well:

Serve-and-Volley Doubles - Making It Work.
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Dynamic Balance in Tennis

In yesterday's post Coaching High School Tennis, I explained how the Inner-Game-of-Tennis teaching method works as a fast and effective way to coach strokes in-season.

But many people just don't get why this method works so well. Consequently, many doubt it without even trying it. Their loss.

To understand takes a little thinking, an effort to zero-in how you use your mind when you consciously try to make yourself swing a certain way. Otherwise you'll never understand why that is a distraction that hurts your performance and makes learning much harder than it need be.

In fact, it's safe to say that most players learn tennis in spite of the way they learn, not because of it.

For a simple, illustrated explanation, see the new lesson entitled Dynamic Balance in Tennis on the main website.

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How to Hit an Overhead Smash in Tennis

You've probably often heard that, to hit an overhead smash, you should immediately point up at the ball and cock your racket back in a throwing position while you move backward under the lobbed ball.

But have you ever seen anyone do that? Have you ever seen the pros who tell you to do this do it themselves?

I know the answer to that question, so be honest now.

Here's Andy Roddick hitting powerful overhead smashes at Roger Federer during Wimbledon. Is he following conventional wisdom?

Now here's Pete Sampras hitting a couple of overheads. Is he doing it?



No and no. They both keep both arms down while maneuvering into position under the ball. They don't raise their arms untill it's time to swing.

Premature preparation doesn't make you swing sooner. You can be posed pointing up in the air with your racket cocked back from the evening of the day before and still probably swing late.

More important, it's clumsy to move (especially backward) with both arms up in the air. When you try to do so, you are way out of dynamic balance and fighting a whole array of backward-balancing reflexes.

Try this tip. I promise you'll like it ;-)

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Tennis Tips & Instruction

Though you should learn strategy and tactics one thing at a time, don't learn your strokes one at a time. The longer you delay learning a stroke, the further ahead your other strokes get. If you wait till you're adept at the forehand before tackling the backhand, you'll be much better at forehands than backhands. Then hitting a backhand takes you out of your comfort zone. So you'll avoid it and never get as good at it.

That goes for all your strokes — the volley, the serve, the overhead. Learn them all as soon as possible, so that you are a beginner with them all, not an advanced player at the baseline and a relative beginner at the net.

Here's an overview of the free video tennis lessons you can use on the Main Website.

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When to Play the Both-Back Formation in Tennis Doubles

I usually advise to stay out of the Both-Back Formation unless you're forced into it. For example, if the opponents are blasting service returns at me when I'm at net, I won't go back to the baseline, I'll snarl at my partner for setting me up with his poopy service returns.

It's a psychological thing. That gives him something to be afraid of that's worse than whatever he's afraid of ;-)

He suddenly forgets whatever else it was that he feared and stops hitting poopy returns that get me blasted. Problem solved.

The reason I say to never fall back into the Both-Back Formation unnecessarily is because it has no vantage points or angles, and it covers less territory than either of the other two formations.

But Stan Smith has an article on the Tennis.com website that gives a good example of when you might try the Both-Back Formation. He explains the reasons for what he says, too.

Notice the situation he describes: It's a tight set with the score something like 5-5, and your opponents are delivering hard serves that you haven't had much success in returning.

If you set up to receive in the Both-Back Formation some of the time (at least on first serves), you change important aspects of the match in a way that just might win you that set.

Read the article here.

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Playing Tennis - the Mental Aspect

When you step out on a tennis court, what is your goal?

That sounds like a stupid question. Your goal is to to win the match, of course.

Is it? Are you sure?

We are composite personalities, part true inner self and part ego. The troublesome ego has its own agenda. Which is vanity.

That isn't to say that the ego is bad. Like our emotions, it's there for a reason and performs an important function. You just want to be sure that it isn't in charge. The intellect must be calling the shots, not emotions or ego.

It's worth your while to really get to know yourself. We often have ulterior motives and intents, which can be buried in the subconscious.

If your goal is to win, then you should be ready to win ugly if you can't win pretty. Are you?

Aye, there's the rub. Many players constantly make choices motivated by the desire to swing "right" or to hit the "right" shot, not the desire to just win the bloomin' point. Result: they lose the bloomin' point.

But they look good doing it.

Looks. Appearances. That's what really counts - not the score.

This happens partly because we live in a society that is hypercritical of everything a person says or does and even FEELS. Virtually everything rises to the level of being "right" or "wrong." This pressures us to feel a need to win approval of everything we do. Even our natural feelings get judged, so we pretend we don't have the frowned upon ones and repress them.

In tennis this extends into an obsession with form, technique.

The ego TAKES THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE BYSTANDER. It is always nagging you about how what you're doing LOOKS to others. That's all it cares about. It will have you more concerned about how you're swinging the racket than about where your shot goes.

That's all vanity. The score is real. And it's just a game, not a measure of your personal worth.

The good news is that just by knowing yourself, you can avoid this pitfall. All it takes a little thought. A little quiet time for little soul-searching now and then to honestly ask yourself what you really want and what your goals really are. For, when you discover a silly goal deep down inside, it evaporates.

You won't get anywhere with a bunch of goals aimed off in different directions. You need one goal, single-minded pursuit of one thing. So, keep it simple: just play the game on the court, not any of the other stupid games people play.

When you thus get into the game itself, you're thinking about strategy and tactics, not your strokes. You'll be surprised at the different effect pressure has on you now: now it stimulates you and brings out the best in you, not the worst.

Now you start really having fun.

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More on Shifting as a Unit in Tennis Doubles

Over the past couple weeks I've been asking players what they think about the adage that doubles partners should shift left or right as unit, "as if roped together." I'm still not sure where this is coming from, but I'll take a stab at this misconception here and go into it a little deeper in the November-December newsletter.

First, like so many bits of bad advice, I think this one started out as good advice but was taken out of context, and the next thing you know, everyone is saying it's generally true.

But if you ask people how this is so, you'll find that none can give you one good reason. Typically, they cheat with the fallacious argument known as the "appeal to authority." It goes like this: "It's true because So-and-So [insert famous name here] says so."

I don't care who So-and-So is. Even if it's me ;-) So-and-So is fallible. And people who know what they're talking about can give give valid reasons for what they say.

Yes, there are times when you and your partner should both shift the same direction, leftward or rightward as a unit. These times usually occur when you are in a side-by-side formation, like the Both-Up Formation or the Both-Back Formation. But it can happen when you are in the Up-and-Back Formation too.

Nonetheless, more often than not, you and your partner should shift opposite directions, diverging or converging.

Here's the most common scenario. Both teams are in the Up-and-Back Formation. Before you say that isn't common at higher levels of play, think again. Many points, even at the top of the game are played in this situation. And almost every point at least begins this way.

Picture it: you have your deuce-side baseliners exchanging crosscourt drives. That's because they try to keep the ball away from the opposing net player. In this rally, some of those crosscourt shots fly at sharp angles.

Result? The Angle of Return gets nasty. When you hit a sharply angled shot, you give your opponent an even sharper Angle of Return. This means that, if you don't watch out, you are going to see a winner come back at a wicked crosscourt angle.

It's the most common error in doubles: a baseliner hits a sharply angled drive crosscourt (one that draws the opposing baseliner wide of the alley to play it) and then recovers THE WRONG WAY - toward center (leftward), instead of shifting out wider (rightward) to cover that nasty Angle of Return.

But now look what your net partner must do at the same time. He or she must shift the opposite direction (leftward) to cover the line down their alley the opposing baseliner has.

This is correct. Your team's shot has given the opponent a sharp and broad Angle of Return, and you two are spreading yourselves thinner to cover it.

This is the single most common scenario in doubles, and it blows right out of the water the adage that you and your partner should always shift the same direction as if roped together.

You can't dumb this down to any rote rule to memorize and follow. You have to learn to visualize the Angle of Return. Once you can do that, your instincts kick in, and you intuitively move the right direction.

I think many people are mislead by that adage because they're thinking in terms of words and instructions instead of visualizing what is going on. They probably are reacting to talk of the gap in the Up-and-Back Formation. Consequently, they probably think that you and your partner are far apart in it and that the opponent will be able to hit between you if you move opposite directions, spreading farther apart.

Wrong. Not in this case. Laterally, you and your partner are no farther apart than you are in the Both-Up or Both-Back Formations. So, from straight on, it's no easier to put a shot between you. And that opposing baseliner in the example above is NEVER going to get the ball between you from there. Your baseliner would have to be down on the next court to make the hole between you big enough!

The gap/hole in the Up-and-Back Formation is an ANGULAR gap. Only an opposing net player kitty-cornered from your net player has a line of fire through it. So long as you keep the ball away from that opposing net player, the gap is no problem.

Like I said, I'll have a little more on this in the newsletter. The website introduces the topic of positioning and the Angle of Return, and the Strategy Guide completely covers it.

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Q&A: Should doubles players shift "as a unit?"

You often hear this advice given in terms of the analogy that doubles players should pretend they are tied together by a rope.

I think I recall where this Tennis Commandment came from. I recall reading it in a doubles book quite a few years ago. If I remember correctly though, the author was talking about playing Both-Up. Which makes more sense. At least it made sense to me then, and I don't recall what he said well enough to comment further.

But nowadays, you hear this going around and coming around as a general rule about how to play doubles. And it's just wrong. At least as often as not, if you shift laterally in the same direction as your partner, one of you is shifting the wrong direction.

Here is an example. Most points, even at the highest levels of the game, involve a rally with both teams in the Up-and-Back Formation. The baseliners are exchanging crosscourt drives.

Every angle you feed your opponent gives him a sharper angle of return, so what happens? The angle of the shots in this rally increases. You have some sharply angled crosscourt shots going back and forth.

If your baseliner hits a sharply angled crosscourt shot, your net player must shift toward his alley to guard against the alley-shot return. And the LAST thing your baseliner should do is recover in the same direction (toward center). That's the most common positioning error doubles players make.

Zap - there goes a crosscout a winner. But it shouldn't have been a winner, because instead of moving toward center, your baseliner should have moved out wide, into the alley, or perhaps even wide of it, to await that shot.

But, Clueless watches that crosscourt winner come back at a wicked angle and wonders how his opponent could hit such a sharply angled shot.

It was easy. Clueless FED him a sharply angled shot with that nasty angle of return. Then Clueless failed to position wide enough for that return. Instead of recovering TOWARD HIS ALLEY, he recovered toward center, leaving an opening as big as a barn door on his alley side.

The angle of return. The angle of return. The angle of return is what determines which direction you should move. No no-brainer rote rule will do.

Watch good singles players. When they hit a sharply angled crosscourt shot to their left, which direction do they recover? Toward their right. The closer they hit to the left alley, the closer to their right alley they position for that shot's return.

There's no arguing with the angle of return. It's geometry, Natural Law. Logic. Trumps any authority figure one might parrot.

In general, as the baseliner in up-and-back doubles, always position wider than you think you need to. Err to the crosscourt side. Watch out for that sharply angled crosscourt shot. Way too many of them go for clean winners in doubles, just because the baseliner thinks he should position inside the sidelines.

The opposite scenario is true too. If you center the ball in your opponents' court (as with a lob), both you and your partner shift toward center. Again, you're moving opposite directions, not as a unit. And this is true even when you're playing both-up or both-back.

I'm not saying that there aren't times you should shift the same direction, but more often not, that advice would be wrong.

Just another example of why you must use your own head and not just swallow whole everything you hear. If some tennis adage doesn't make sense to you, doubt it. Because there's a lot of junk going around out there.

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Your Emotions During a Tennis Match

Everything you do has a moral effect on you and everyone it relates to. That is, it affects morale.

So, when you're down, never let it show. Do feel what you feel, but it's private so keep it to yourself. Be like birds: they can be so faint they're one second from dropping dead, but, to hide their weakness from predators, they still manage to look fit as a fiddle. When you're dog tired, put a spring in your step. When you err, make light of it.

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
— Hamlet, William Shakespeare

Nonetheless, the surest way to show emotional weakness is to lie about your feelings by pretending you don't have them. For one thing, doing this is self-delusion. Furthermore, your adversaries just see right through the charade and smell blood.

Your feelings aren't "right" or "wrong," and you cannot control or change them. All you can control is your actions.

For the most part, it's best to keep your feelings to yourself on a tennis court. But many people confuse that with repressing your feelings.

Repressing your feelings is just a lie that buries them in the subconscious, where they mushroom unchecked by any limiting influence and where they rule your behavior like an unseen puppet master. So, know/own them instead. Let them remain in the conscious layer of your mind, where you are aware of their influence on your behavior and can temper it with reason and good judgment.

This is why some players show anger without harming their play or boosting the opposition's morale. Indeed, if you feel it, there's no real harm in showing anger now and then. So long as it's in a mete amount and there's no chagrin in it.

I really don't mind the shows of emotion, banging your racket, getting upset in the moment — that's just adrenaline. But that constant feeling of hanging your head, walking a little slower, just being dejected. You're showing your opponent that you're ready for him to beat you, and that's not a good thing.
— James Blake

Exactly. People play tennis for the same reason they read a novel — for the emotional experience it supplies. Therefore, expect a few emotions. That just means you're alive.

Disproportionate anger and chagrin, however, make errors a weighty matter. To keep chagrin out of your head, just keep things in perspective. A match is just a game — fantasy warfare, a war you really want to win but one waged in sport, one there's no loss in losing. And missing tennis shots is no measure of your personal worth!

For excellent advice on how to get along with yourself and your errors, I highly recommend Tim Gallwey's book, The Inner Game of Tennis.

One more thing. When you step out onto the court, don't forget something as important as your shoes and racket — your sense of humor. It's armor proof to the arrows and bolts of the inner battle.

Which is nothing, because it's all in the head.

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More on the Up-and-Back Formation of Tennis Doubles

A bit more on the Up-and-Back Formation.

Poaching, of course, makes sense only if your team is in the Up-and-Back Formation. So, if you avoid the Up-and-Back Formation, remove poaching from your list of ways to score.

Poaching wins many points in doubles. You set up your team with but one net player. You put him or her on the right side or the left side of your court.

Any opposing back-player must keep the ball away from your net player.

Easy? Not when your net player can poach.

I could give more examples, like the Switch Trick Play. It's an Up-and-Back Formation play.

Yes, doubles becomes so simple you can be brain-dead while you play it if you never use the Up-and-Back Formation. That's because you're either both-up banging angle-volleys at the alleys all the time . . . or both-back scrambling to keep pushing the ball back into play.

You have no other options, no other things to try. Your banging/pushing either works or it doesn't.

Which is why it's ironic to hear people say that playing the Up-and-Back Formation marks you as ignorant. For, saying that is what marks a person as ignorant.

The strategically ideal formation is the Both-Up. Most teams have the weapons to play it at least occasionally and should. The last resort is the Both-Back Formation. Bt no formation (or any of its variations) is "bad." They all have their place in the game.

As I showed in two earlier posts on this subject, those who cry out against the Up-and-Back Formation are losing so many points because they don't know how to play it. (1) They look back to watch their partner hit the ball. (2) They switch for lobs over their net player. (3) They park in one spot instead of moving to give their baseline partner a wide enough hitting lane. Yes, anyone who makes these blunders is going to lose a ton of points to volleys through the gap between partners.

Just as you'll lose a ton of points if you play both-up without preventing good lobs.

Therefore, don't condemn a formation. Just learn how to play them all, and you will get satisfaction and fun out of your game. There's more to the Up-and-Back Formation than the other two, so you might have to exercise a brain cell or two to learn that one.

But if you're not too intellectually lazy to do that, so what?

A huge part of the fun in doubles comes through the mental battle of trying to outfox your opponents. It's a blast.

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The Up-and-Formation of Tennis Doubles

In answer to some questions I've received showing that I failed to make a point clear in my earlier post about the Up-and-Back Formation. So I'll try to make the point more clear.

Via the Web and forums, it is fast becoming a cliche that the Up-and-Back Formation is "bad." The parrots saying that those who play whole points in the Up-and-Back Formation are ignorant are themselves the ignorant ones.

How can you tell?

Because they are bemoaning many volleys through the gap between partners in the Up-and-Back Formation, which shows that they don't know how to play it properly.

Presumably, they are getting beat by many volleys through the gap because:

• At net they are looking back to watch their partner hit the ball and don't see those volleys to the gap coming in time to back off and defend the gap.
• They are switching for lobs and getting their returns of lobs switch-poached.
• Their net player parks in one spot instead of manuevering to widen their baseline partner's hitting lane, so that their partner has a hard time keeping the ball away from the opposing net player.

Yes, if you make these errors, your opponents will have a heyday volleying shots through the gap on you.

So, don't blame the Up-and-Back Formation, when the real problem is that many players just don't know how to play it.

Every formation has a vulnerable area, and you need to know how to play that formation so as to minimize the risk of a shot to that vulnerable area.

The gap in the Up-and-Back Formation is targetble only by an opposing net player kitty-cornered from your net player. But how often does an opposing net player kitty-cornered from your net player get a whack at the ball? Compare with the rear in the Both-Up Formation. It is targetable by either opponent from anywhere on every shot.

So, which formation is really more vulnerable?

Just as you need to play both-up so as to prevent good lobs, you need to play up-and-back so as to prevent volleys through the gap.

What you CAN say about the Up-and-Back Formation is that is more complex than the other formations and requires more knowledge to play properly, but that doesn't make it a "bad" formation.

Unfortunately, everyone needs to learn how to play Up-and-Back properly, because it's unavoidable. It's the formation beginners use. It's the formation virtually every point, at every level, begins in - with both teams in the Up-and-Back Formation.

So, learn how to play it properly or suffer.

Do NOT avoid the Up-and-Back Formation. When it's called for, it's necessary. For example, wnd what if you're both-up and one of you goes back to chase a lob? What? Must both of you retreat to avoid the Up-and-Back Formation? Similarly, what if you're both-back and one of you can advance while the other hits? What? Must you wait till you both can advance on an approach shot, just to avoid the Up-and-Back Formation?

Ridiculous. The good thing about the Up-and-Back Formation is its versatility. It has an offensive mode and a defensive mode, and it enables you transition smoothly into either of the other formations.

Avoiding the Up-and-Back Formation makes no more sense than avoiding either of the other two would. They all have their use in the game.

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Tennis Doubles Q & A: The Weakest Doubles Formation

Believe it or not, there is life outside of tennis, and I enjoyed a little of it last week :)

But it's getting interesting now, so I promise to pay attention.

For now though, I thought I'd answer here a question about doubles that I hear a lot.

It goes something like this: Isn't the Up-and-Back Formation bad to be in?

I never quite know where to grab hold of that thing. "Bad?" As in, "Don't do that or the guys will think you're not a real tennis player."

The Plague (tennis ego) strikes again. Of all the reasons not to do something, that has got to be the silliest. It isn't a moral issue.

The weakness in the Up-and-Back Formation has been exaggerated, as if there's no way to keep your opponents from volleying through the angular gap between partners in the Up-and-Back Formation.

And the weaknesses in the other two formations are never even mentioned, let alone compared. Indeed, some will gasp "Heresy!" if you point out the weakness in the Both-Up Formation.

The rear in the Both-Up Formation is targetable by either opponent on every shot. The wings in the Both-Back Formation are targetable by any opposing net player on every shot. The angular gap in the Up-and-Back Formation is targetable only by an opposing volleyer kitty-cornered from your net player and only when he or she gets a whack at the ball, which should be seldom.

The leading candidate for "weakest" formation is the Both-Back Formation. No vantage points or angles. And it covers less territory than either of the other formations.

But even the Both-Back Formation isn't "bad." Sometimes it's the "right" formation to be in. Nonetheless, this is the one formation you should try to avoid having to get into.

NEVER get into it unless you have to.

If your partner is getting you blasted at the net because of his wimpy shots, don't go back to the baseline: threaten your wimpy partner with worse than whatever he's afraid of if he doesn't quit hitting those wimpy shots. Works like a charm ;-)

All three of these basic formations are good for what they're good for. Not one of them is "bad." In fact, it takes much more knowledge to play Up-and-Back correctly than to play the other formations, which are simple by comparison.

When two teams face each other in the Up-and-Back Formation, all kinds of variations can occur. You need to know what you're doing out there.

And virtually every point, at every level, starts just that way - with two teams facing each other in the Up-and-Back Formation.

When your net player takes root, thus remaining in their baseline partner's way - WHACK - a volley through the gap. But whose fault is that? The Up-and-Back Formation's? Or the rooted net player on your team?

When your net player doesn't watch the opposing net player during your baseline player's shot - WHACK - again, because your net player never saw the cut-off volley coming and was out of position to close and defend the gap. Again, whose fault is that? The Up-and-Back Formation's? Or a net player with a head-turning habit on your team?

And then there's the switching - WHACK - again. But whose fault is that? The Up-and-Back Formation's? Or the doubles players who don't know the Switch Trick and how to handle switching situations?

These situations just don't arise in the other formations. So, it would be fair to say that the Up-and-Back Formation is the hardest to play. You need to know a lot more to play it well. Playing Both-Up or Both-Back is simple by comparison.

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