Fix This Doubles Mistake Before Your Next Match!

Here are the best college players in the world making such a common doubles mistake that you see from rec players every single day. Let's watch this point and then we'll analyze it. All right, so we've got UCLA versus Stanford. At the time of this video, this was several years ago, but UCLA was ranked four in the country. Stanford was ranked third. In division one tennis, here is an out wide serve that is going to pull the returner off the court. When an out wide serve pulls the returner off the court, immediately the returner's partner is supposed to move with them. This guy, even though he is an extremely high level player, and if I were to play him, I would get destroyed. Wouldn't even be a match, but My job as a coach is not to beat players. My job is to help players improve. So when your partner gets pulled off the court, whether it's a ground stroke, off a volley, off a serve in this scenario, you are supposed to immediately move with them. The idea is very simple. The players are supposed to cover, basically, 50% of the court each, because that totals 100% of the court covered 100% of the time. That's what you're trying to do in most cases. Well, when the returner gets completely pulled off the court, and by the way, like way off the court, we don't even see him. Well, this guy is now responsible for 100% of the court for the next, let's say, two seconds. His job is basically to play singles. Well, if he was playing two against one, would he just camp out here? No, he'd have to move over and stand more in the middle. That way he can cover most of the court by staying where he stayed. That leaves the opening right here that he has no play on the ball. This is very simple, even though I would say this is actually the this is one of the concepts in doubles. Where there is the greatest disparity between the number of players who know to do this and the number of players who actually do this. Because when I teach people this and I remind them, like you'll have, like, you know, I'll be analyzing the doubles points of a 4-0 team. Let's say two people send me videos of their matches. They want me to analyze them. And we hop on a live Zoom call and I say, hey, you know, Bob, your partner moved over. And you didn't move with them. Oh, I know. Yeah, I know, Ryan. I know I'm supposed to do that. Like trying to like stop me from teaching them or telling them. It's like, no, no, no. I understand that you know to do it. You have to do it, though. You can't just know to do it. You have to do it. When a partner gets pulled off the court, you can't have this player just hanging out. Part of your responsibility as the returner's partner is to immediately recognize that a ball Pulls your partner out wide and he's even looking right at him. Look, he's looking right at him as his partner is getting pulled over and he's staying there. The ball goes to the net guy and he's barely activated, barely become activated. And it's not like he's moving quickly. He's not moving quickly over here to try to get in the middle and bisect kind of where that ball will most likely go. He does a little bit of a hop. That's not going to help him to cover this shot. And of course, the ball splits the uprights If you have video footage of yourself playing doubles, look for opportunities where you can do a better job of what's called the windshield wiper concept. When a partner gets pulled off the court. You should immediately recognize that because the tennis ball travels too fast. You can't be like, well, I noticed it, but I was a little late. Well, if you're a little late, you're fully late. It doesn't matter how late you are, you're late. So that's why he had no play on that ball. If he would have moved over, he could have at least forced this guy to maybe have to hit a more difficult volley, the more inside out volley where he's more likely to miss. Or if the ball does go here. As he volleyed right there, then he would have been more in the center and had a play on that ball, maybe hits it back to the server, and the point continues. Don't let your partner go off the court and you stay. Move with them immediately or you're going to lose a lot of points. Looking to gain a ton of confidence by getting video of your technique or match play analyzed? Send me an email, ryan at twominutetennis.net, and I'll give you all the details, including pricing, turnaround time, and I'll even show you examples of video lessons I've made for students in the past. When your partner gets pulled off the court in doubles, move with them. That's going to help you cover more of the court, and there's no doubt, you're going to gain confidence, win more matches, and play much better tennis. This is Ryan Reedy from twominutetennis.net. You got this!