¶ Intro / Opening
Hey everyone, on today's episode we have three-time U.S. Open champion Rajiv Ram back on the show. He's won 500 matches on the ATP Tour, 32 titles, and been world number one, so no big deal at all. On today's show, we discuss his starting position. what formation he uses against great returners, what he looks for in a partner, and how bossy I was as a partner back in the day. So sit back, relax, and prepare to become a smarter tennis player. All right, Rajiv, welcome back to the pod.
Happy to be here. I think this is, I should have checked before. This is either your third or fourth time. I'm pretty sure it's your fourth, your fourth off season. You just keep getting older and older. What are you? Yeah, exactly. So are you going to be 42 by the time the Aussie Open comes around, or are you still 41? Not quite. I'm going to be 42 by the time Miami comes around, though, in March. So, yeah, I'm sneaking up on it. So you're getting there. So we've gone through four podcasts.
obviously picked your brain my whole life and now through three podcasts so this whole podcast is instagram questions so we got a lot of them and they're honestly better than what i would have come up with which is genius on my part um so first one we're going to get into is
They want to know what factors you consider when you and your partner are deciding what type of formations to play both on the serve and the return. Yeah. Okay. So on the serve side of things, start with that. I always feel like if I'm playing against a very good returner.
¶ How Rajeev chooses serve formations
especially one that's maybe really explosive, you know, can really hit it. But even just a good quality return, I prefer to play regular formation because I feel like with the eye, I'm not the fastest. So if I serve... and have to cover my spot.
There's a long way to go, and there's potentially a bit of space for the returner to hit it into. If I'm playing somebody who maybe they're not as comfortable with the return, I'll probably play a little bit more I, just because I feel like they're maybe not going to hit it as clean.
player can pick off a few more balls that being said though if there is a situation at all where I feel like I serve better from one position or the other that always takes precedence right so like if there's a light issue if there's a
Court speed issue. Any issue at all that I say, hey, listen, I serve better from I or regular, that that proceeds and is more important to me than whatever's happening on the other side of the net. When you talk about going regular against the better returner because it's.
tougher to get to your spot. Is that because when you go I formation, a vast majority of teams, including you, mainly cover cross court when you're at the net like the net guy is not responsible for line so you would have to serve and then get all the way to that line return that's right yeah that's exactly right and since my net player and me are in the middle of the court if the returner sort of hits a
good one it's going to be really difficult to defend that right and if they hit it clean and they hit hard and they hit it well I feel like you're going to be kind of behind the eight ball a little bit straight out of the gates. If you're in regular, you kind of just say, all right, you know, you're a good returner. You're probably going to be able to make a good shot anyway. I'm going to trust the fact that.
I can serve and make a first volley or whatever it might be, and we're going to play the point, and we're going to beat you sort of after the serve. Yep. There's a bunch of different beliefs out there, different ways to do things. Some people want to call the play so that the return will come to the net player every time. Some people want to call a play so that the best return... will go to the net player every time and the weakest return would go to the server how do you
I guess what do you consider when you're trying to funnel the return? Like obviously when you guys call a play, you probably want the return to go to a certain spot. Like you have an idea of how this is going to work out if everything goes according to plan. So do you try to get the returner?
moving a certain way so you know where the return will go? Is it just simply playing to your strengths? Like how do all those factors come together? Yeah, that's a good question. So I feel like the best way to go about it is to have the returners best quality return, which obviously will depend on which serve you hit, go to my net guy. So for example, if I'm serving in the ad court and I'm serving T and we're playing I formation, I'm probably going to have my net player go left because if I...
If I stretch the player to a righty's forehand and I hit a decent serve, it's going to be very hard for them to sort of pull that ball with any quality, you know? I'm going to assume their best shot is going to be to kind of go with it because they're stretched. So I'm going to have my net player cover the cross-court return, right? That is the same on the deuce court and all that. So, yeah, I feel like if the ball gets to me as a server, I want to be dealing with...
they're less quality shot or the tougher shot to hit because ultimately the more times I can get my net guy to touch the ball off the serve, the better I am. Is it fair to say out of I formation,
that you probably wouldn't serve wide too often because it's probably difficult for the neck guy. If you had a really good wide serve in the deuce court, let's say out of the eye, that guy is probably shading to the deuce side out of the eye formation anyway, but he's going to have to get all the way over there.
before that guy cranks a return so you might go more forehand body in the deuce or more t which would be funneling it towards that neck guy is that something that's pretty common on the tour obviously you can't do that every single time because it would be predictable but right
is it one of those things where like you kind of know that's the lower percentage option out of the eye yes absolutely i feel like if you keep the ball towards the middle of the court it's likely to come back more towards the middle of the court so you know with your net player being kind of in that area already
in eye formation it's likely more likely that he would get to touch more of those we'll call them ball three right serve ball one return ball two ball three he would get to touch more but you make a great point that the best teams in the world
are the most unpredictable ones. So the last thing you're going to want to do is feel like, you know, you know where you want to go on a big point. And so today, you know, you want to make sure that there's enough variation to where there's a bit of unpredictability there. And I will also say.
As somebody who relies on their serve, if I feel a certain serve, regardless of the point, regardless of the situation, I'm going to hit it. So if it means, you know, I want to hit a wide serve on the ad court on a big point from eye, and maybe it's not the textbook play, I'm still going to trust.
my serve over maybe what is, you know, what will be sort of the better percentage. Right. When you talk about predictability. So one thing I see at the amateur level, I saw this in college and I honestly even felt it when we played against people was.
Let's say my best play is served. We're in the I. I serve T. You're going I formation and you go right in the do squirt because that's where we think the ball is going to go. Boom, boom, boom, boom. We do that every time. I walk up on 130 all and I serve wide. That's the mix up. And let's say I hit a good serve and I burn them.
The next time up, even if I've served T five times and the last time was wide, I feel like they go, oh, it could be either. The reality is five out of six times I served T. Like it really, you should be playing the odds. So do you find.
that that even happens at your level. If you throw in one pattern breaker here or there based on score, that it almost resets everything and they go, hey, it could go either way. Or do people just go, you know what? I know Rajiv likes to do this. I'm going to sit on it pretty much every time and just hope he goes with his secondary play. Yeah, I feel like it happens less because I remember that happening a lot when we were kids and we played. It's like one shot out of...
five, six, or even seven, you know, if it goes the other way, it's all of a sudden it means as much as the five or six that have gone the way that you maybe prefer. I still feel like the best teams or the best players will still say, oh, that was too good. If you beat me with that. You win, but I'm going to make you beat me with your strength. And I feel like it's more common at the higher levels where...
That one sort of mix-up doesn't sort of ruin the whole thing. It's got to be a little bit more than that. I would say a little closer to like 20% as opposed to 10% sort of thing, you know?
I said this was going to be all Instagram questions, and I asked you like five follow-ups there that weren't on there. That weren't written in. Exactly, but that was just me being curious. The next Instagram question, which kind of goes along with what we're saying, is they want to know how you pick your serve targets.
And I guess the way I interpreted that is, are you going with your strength? Are you going against their weaknesses? Are you going purely on the formation, the plays that we've been talking about? Are you using the score? What are the factors that you go in and you're talking to your partner, you go, hey, I want to serve tea here. What does that look like? Yeah, I would say.
¶ How Rajeev chooses his serve targets
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. I think it all goes into it. I think that's why it's super important, though. We'd like to, or I like to, when I play with somebody, have a plan almost before the match saying, okay, on a big point, this is what I'm likely to do in this position.
It doesn't mean you go with it 100%. It doesn't mean you stick with it, but it almost is like a default. Like if I have no idea what to do, at least I've talked about it beforehand. But for me, as someone, again, who relies on their serve and really kind of trusts the serve,
I'm going to go with whatever my best play is, whatever my best serve is. And that could be maybe different in different situations. If it's a grass court, maybe it's more of a slider. If it's a clay court, maybe it's more of a kicker. If it's a...
hot, fast condition, hardcore, maybe I'm hitting it right at you because it's kind of coming at you a bit fast. It varies, but I'm going to think less about, oh, you have a good backhand or you have a good forehand. I'm going to hit what I think is the best serve given the situation. When we talked about predictability earlier and then how the score would factor into you choosing a serve, do you find that some teams are predictable in the sense of like...
They do their best thing when the scores are close or when they're down and when they have leads or maybe it's a lower value point. They're like, hey, this is the one we'll sprinkle in. Is that something that's common out there that you see or are people pretty good about mixing it up regardless of the score?
Yeah, I think, again, it goes with the teams that are more successful are better at mixing it up. And I think that you do have that's the natural tendency, right? If you need a point, you're going to go with the shot that's more sort of that you think. might happen or the one that you want to hit and all of a sudden if you have 40 love, you're going to go with the opposite one. So I think to answer your question, I mean, the best teams do the best job of being unpredictable.
I saw someone when I was watching an NFL game and they were saying that you basically should always think what the other team doesn't want. Or actually they were talking about fans. So like if you're Colts, which by the way, sorry. What a weekend.
That's gone downhill quickly. So your Colts are playing defense against someone, and the other team has fourth and one on the 43-yard line, right? You're hoping the team will just punt or kick a field goal. You don't want them to go for it, which means the other team should go for it. You're like, everyone's dying for you not to run that play. So do you ever kind of do that with tennis where you're sitting there and you go, okay, it's a break point.
What does Rasheed not want to do here? Like the last thing that Rasheed wants me to do is serve a body backhand and poach or whatever. Do you ever try to get inside their mindset and think about what they're struggling with or what they don't like? Absolutely. I think that's a big part of tennis, right? So I think so often we get stuck thinking about how we feel, right, as tennis players, because I'm the only one on my side of that, or maybe me and a partner in doubles or whatever else.
the whole time there's another person or another team on the other side, if it's a pressure moment, you know, probably if you're feeling pressure, they're feeling pressure too. And they're not going to want to do a certain play. They're not going to want to play with their weakness, that kind of thing. So I think. A really big part of tennis is understanding what the opposition may be feeling like in that moment and trying to exploit it. And I think sometimes we get lost in.
oh my gosh, I'm feeling this and I'm thinking this. And you think that that person is feeling like a million bucks, which is probably not the case. Right. I'm adding my own Instagram question. So we talked about how you choose a serve target. A lot of times people say, oh, they saw the net guy moving, so they went line on the return or whatever it might be. How often...
When you choose to go line or cross, is that preset like you talked about, maybe even before the match, but before the point you look at your partner and go, hey, like I'm probably going cross. How much of that is reacting to the serve and how much of that is actually visually.
I would guess it's very little because the serve's so damn fast. Like, I don't understand how you could have time to see someone move and change your mind. But like, how do you choose the return target? I mean, on a first serve, you're absolutely right. I think it's... It'd be very difficult to say, oh, I saw the person go and I changed my target. I mean, that's...
I think, you know, one out of 100, maybe that'll happen. But I feel like on the second serve, you might have a little bit more of that coming into it. But for me as a returner, I always feel like... I'm going to beat somebody with the quality of my shot. I think there are guys who play that have a really good eye and they actually are able to sort of hold their shot a bit longer and work it around a net person.
In doing that, you do hit it less hard, but you do avoid the net player. So it's sort of like take your pick. For me, I'm a little bit more in the sense of I'm going to hit this to this spot. And even if the guy goes there, I'm going to hit it well enough to where. I'm going to be on the front foot off of the next ball. I would say when I'm feeling my absolute best and you feel like you're in the quote unquote zone.
You can probably see it all happening because it all feels like it's going really slow. But again, that's not something that's normal or common. I think it's much more easy for me as a player to pick a spot on second serve return and hit it there and hope that my quality of shot does the job for me.
And just for the record, how often during the season do you feel like you're in the zone? I can probably name you the one match that happened last year. It was a moment of one match. It was in the final set tiebreaker. in the finals of Cincinnati, which is an amazing time for it to happen. But yeah, not often. Okay. Just checking on that one. It wasn't even a match. It was about a 10-minute window. Right. So you had 10 minutes in 2025.
Yeah. And I thought that was pretty good. I was pretty happy with that. Right. So I want to circle back. You mentioned how you might pick strategy before the match starts. Yeah. But then obviously you can adjust. You might go to the match and go, hey, we know we're going to pick on this guy's backhand return. We know we probably want to go a little more eye or regular or whatever. How...
How many factors would go into you changing your mind? So let's say you're going against me and you go, hey, we're playing Stokey. We know he's going to catch the backhand late all day. Let's just go. I he can't pull it, whatever. Whatever. I'm sitting and I'm having my career day. My left hand's coming through and I'm ripping back hands line. Yeah.
How many times or how would I have to burn you for you to go, hey, you know what? We had a strategy that we thought through really clearly for a long period of time, and we've come out in the heat of battle with emotions, and we're now going to scrap it. How does that process look like? Yeah, that's a really good question. I feel like it has to be more than once. You can't say, oh, he did it once and all that. If I'm going to put a number on it, I'm going to say around three times.
¶ When he changes strategy in a match
It's almost more of a feel thing. Like, you know, and this is where it's so important to be aware of what's happening, aware of your opponent. If I am playing you and I'm like, I've hit this serve. And yeah, I've seen you hit the inside out backhand from the deuce court a thousand times.
pulling it but it sort of looks like you know you're doing it on purpose because you want me to think you own that shot i i need to be aware enough to sort of see that and process it and say ah that's a bit of a bluff like
you know, you used to do with the forehand. You used to hit the forehand as hard as you could with the neck guy one time, and everybody would avoid your forehand because they didn't want you to hit it, but little do they know, you didn't really want to hit it, you know? So it's that same sort of thing. If I feel like... man he's really getting around that it's a quality shot it's not just like he's flailing at it and he's caught one it's like he's really it looks like it's repeatable
Then I'd be more apt to change the strategy. If I feel like, nah, that was just a hack and it happened to go in, I'm going to take my chances that that's not going to be repeatable on your part. That's very fair. And it's amazing, again, with the psychology of how often those simple tricks will work. I mean, you play really smart players like you have a ton of awareness. So you would look at me and you go.
That forehand was the biggest bluff of all time. Like I watched him warm up. It looks disgusting. He hit it. It didn't look particularly clean. Like he clearly doesn't like it, right? You would not fall for that. It's not even a warm up, right? I've probably seen you play a few matches before and we've been on tour.
for you know 20 years together I've probably seen you do this so like I have an idea of what is what's really kind of happening and what's maybe a little bit of a bluff right you talked about awareness and I have a lot of time to think when I'm sitting on the couch with my dog cuddling. And I've thought a lot about like, what is the most important skill for a player? And for me, I'm starting to gravitate towards just situational awareness in any sport. Like, you know where you are in space.
You know the score situation. You know what your opponent is doing. You know how you are feeling. And you're kind of stirring that all in a pot. And you go, I know what I should be doing now. You obviously have always had that. You're a very, very intelligent player, which is part of the reason why you've been so great.
How do you think a recreational player out there listening can start to improve their situational awareness or just the awareness of what's going on in a match in general? Yeah, I would say the first thing is sort of, it's not an easy...
¶ Improving your situational awareness
concept but it's almost like separate what you're actually feeling from how you act and then that seems really difficult but like if you're feeling nervous i feel like these other things sometimes get consuming right if you're feeling these sort of i don't know these these difficult feelings because of the situation they sort of consume you so if you i think the best players and the best athletes in any sport are able to separate themselves from from those
sort of difficult feelings and sort of put in a box yeah i got all these things going on but let me separate myself and say all right what's the score why am i feeling this what could my opponent be feeling all of these things and for me it's actually It's actually been really helpful to be able to do that because then the bad feeling I might be having doesn't seem so bad anymore or all consuming. So I would just say.
It sounds like more of a psychology lesson than a sport lesson, but I really do think that's a humongous part of being successful in sport is see if you can sort of. Take whatever it is you're feeling, acknowledge it, recognize it, but then don't let it consume you and understand what else might be going on around. And really, for me, I mean, more often than not in a tennis match, if you're nervous, so is the other person.
realize that when they're nervous, they're not going to be playing their best or feeling their best either. Just a quick break to thank ADV for sponsoring the podcast and my 2026 doubles camps. Their Pro V3 bag was named a travel and leisure top tennis bag for its dialed-in organization, and the Flex backpack took home best bag from Speak Pickleball magazine for its layout, durability, and on-court usability.
It's my favorite bag for coaching and competing, which is why I include it in all my camps. And if you want to get your tennis friends or yourself a great holiday gift, use my 10% code in the show notes. All right, switching gears a touch. This player wanted to know... I guess I want to know how often you call them, but what goes into you actually pre-planning a poach? Or do you do not do that very often? So off of a serve or off of their second serve return, I guess.
If you play 50 points, how often are you doing it? And then what goes into those decision-making processes? Yeah, so this goes back to the predictability.
¶ How he calls poaches
portion of what we were talking about sort of even with eye formation and different things and where to serve i would say if you're going to put a number on it i'd put it somewhere between 20 and 25 percent of the time it's being called i'd put it probably on the lower end of that um for actual poaching however
That does not by any stretch mean if you don't call a poach and you're, let's say, playing regular formation that you just sit in your alley and hope the ball comes to you. A big part of... poaching and making that sort of net play successful is actually being in the right position to start with and picking off so many of those balls that are maybe 50 50 in the middle even though it's not a called poach
And I actually quite often find that the best poachers happen when they're uncalled. So if I'm serving and my net player just decides he wants to go on this play, quite often as a returner, the returner actually sees... what the server is doing as opposed to what the net player is doing so if it's a second serve and they want to go the return is actually going to look at me as the server to say oh is he covering the other spot so i think
Some of the most effective poaches are actually the ones where you just leave one side of the court completely empty. And, you know, the returner gets a bit fooled by it. So, again, if I'm putting a number, 20%. But just because you don't poach doesn't mean you're not very involved in the play. Right. When your partner goes freestyle, goes rogue, which, by the way, I love. And let's say he just gets roasted line. Be honest.
How often are you looking at that guy going like, what the hell? Like, we didn't call that. What are you doing? Or are you like, hey, green light. Like you saw something. I trust you. You're up there to be offensive. What does that look like? Yeah. In my career, I have not ever been like.
Hey, what are you doing? You know, absolutely. Most of the time it's great job, whatever you saw. I love it. All that. The only time it would be like, Oh, I don't know about that. If it was just like a massive point and you know, you feel like we've talked about, okay, we want to make.
make this person play and be a little bit more you know let's say solid on a big point because again if i'm feeling nervous so are they and i feel like i feel like the move was done out of panic as opposed to out of actual you know, prediction, if you will, that that would be a problem. But if you if you feel like it's done because of a good validated reason, I have no problem with it.
I don't know how many times people need to hear things before they believe it or start actually taking action on it. But when you said that most of you only poach 20% of the time, but you are also kind of pinching and you are covering a fair amount of the middle. And you said, I think a lot of it is because you're positioned correctly.
Can you clearly articulate where your regular formation here, where you start in the box and then just on a stand? Actually, you could give me all the serves, but kind of where you are positioned and kind of what you are expecting in regular formation when you are not poaching.
¶ Where he starts in regular formation
Okay, so regular formation when I'm not poaching, the first thing is where you start. Because I feel like that is a big presence that you're putting out there. This is where I'm starting. So I'm starting with my outside foot. On the deuce court, that would be, if my partner is serving to the deuce court, my outside foot would be my left foot. If you slice the service box in half, my left foot is on that line.
Does that make sense? Oh, God, I love that. Your left foot is in the center of the service box? My left foot is in the center of the service box. If anything, it's just a touch to the left of that line. But I'm not... Straddling the service. I'm not in the middle of the box. I am more towards the middle than I am towards the singles line
Like 60-40 towards the middle, maybe 65-35 towards the middle if your left foot was in the center and your right foot was just naturally in your stance. It's wherever it is. Okay, so that's where you're starting, whether you're serving tea or wine. That's right. Okay. Yeah. And that's the same case on the outside with obviously the opposite foot, right? With the right foot being the one that's in the middle. So if we're starting there, I feel from that position and I make a move.
to my left or my right, you know, forward, but to my left or my right, depending on where I know the serve is going to go, I'm in a pretty good spot to cover a lot of balls that are going to be floating through the middle, which will kind of look like they might have been poaches or called poaches, but it's...
purely in my zone because of where I've started. Yep. How worried are you? One thing I get from recreational players for sure is, well, if I stand there, I'm gonna get hit in the head. So obviously you have the serve. You mean with the serve? Correct. So you have a much, well, they also say with the return, which is, you know, hopefully your racket's in front of you, but like they say, well, my partner doesn't know where the serve's going. So I get hit in the head.
And I would say, well, you're obviously allowed to bend or at least bend over at the waist and kind of get low. Is that kind of what you do? Because obviously the serves are coming very hot on the pro tour. So that actually would hurt if you got hit in the back of the head. Are you just getting low enough to where that's not an issue?
Yeah, and that's a discussion I need to have with my partner before, because obviously I want him to feel like he's got the whole box to serve into and he's not, you know, it's not.
I'm not in his way. So if I'm in his way, then I'm going to have to make an adjustment. One thing is some players start a little bit further back and then move quickly forward after the serve is hit because that obviously gives them more time. Some people like me who I feel like I'm not as quick to move forward would start a little lower.
And if it's a real problem, yeah, you do shade a little bit more, I guess, to the sideline. But that's only if it's a real issue. Yep. And you mentioned that when your server goes wide on either side. You're obviously slanted towards the middle with your ready position. You might follow it towards the line a little bit. I almost, this is bad, but I almost tell people not to do it just because I know they overdo it.
right so of course you should be sliding a little bit towards that line because a wide return could be caught late and is more likely to go down the line sometimes maybe accidentally even in the alley But players seem to run over there quite a bit, almost overdoing it. So how much do you shift towards the line on a good wide first serve? I mean, so the thing is, it's not really you're shifting.
sideways the biggest thing you're still moving in like a in like a v like that right so i think if you think about the fact that it's not really shifting sideways but it's actually shifting forward and and you're just shifting sort of
towards the ball, for me, that's a pretty good way to think about it. You're not shifting towards the line. The ball is not going sideways. The ball is still going much, even on a wide serve, it's going much more forward than it is sideways. So I kind of think about it as following the ball in that situation.
The biggest key is why that works is because you're starting in such an aggressive position that even if you follow the ball and it's a really good wide serve, you're still nowhere close to the alley. You know, you're still on, you know, on in the singles court. Yep, love that. You are going to be starting the new year with Matthew Ebden. We just talked about that new partner. You've played with a ton of partners in your career. This doesn't have to be specific to him, but...
Generally speaking, what do you look for in a partner? Is it certain types of shots? Is it... uh mentality that complements what you have is it um kind of like synergistic where i don't even know if that's a word but like their strengths kind of factoring with your strengths like what do you look for in a partner
¶ What he looks for in a partner
Yeah, I mean, the first thing is you're kind of on the same page in terms of how you want to go about competing in a match. I feel like, you know, the best... The best times I've had on the court is when you feel like you're both in it together competing as hard as you can. That means having clarity. That means having some of these discussions before the matches, during the matches, after the matches. So you really feel like you're giving yourself the best chance to win. And also...
You're good partners to each other. That's super important, right? This is another thing we talk about. You see on the, on the amateur level or the recreational level, you know, someone misses a shot and the other person's rolling their eyes and like, you know, just none of that. Right. I mean, if you miss an easy shot, it's kind of, or sorry, if your partner misses an easy shot, I think it's your job to go and make sure that they realize that's just one.
point and not let that build into more bad misses. So that's the first thing. Someone I feel like I can do that with. The second thing is from a tennis perspective. I think I worry less about forehands and backhands and serves and returns. I actually worry more about athleticism and court coverage. And it's one thing that I'm not great at in terms of how...
I move, so I think I've had my best success with other players who are quite athletic and mobile, and Matt certainly fits that mold. One of the best athletes I've ever played with or against is Joe Salisbury. Obviously, we had... Great success. And I think one of the biggest reasons is because we complimented each other kind of in that way as athletes before we even got to hitting the ball. Yep.
Be honest here. I don't know if Alcaraz, if he focused on it for a couple months, would be easily the best doubles player in the world or not. Let's say there was a guy like that in singles who, if he decided to play doubles with you, he would instantly be the best talent on the doubles tour. Best guy by a mile. Great serve. Great return. Athletic. Knows what he's doing. But he's the biggest dick of all time. And you just hate playing with him. But he's incredible. He is objectively awesome.
Is that something that you could tolerate? Is there a sliding scale where you go, hey, I want to be in it with this guy that I can compete with? Because I have always felt like, of course, that is major. But if you got a guy and I'm like, well, you know what? He serves 140 and like we always hold.
And the guy rips returns, but he kind of treats me like trash in between. But I'm winning the US Open, whatever. Is there a sliding scale there where you're like, hey, you know what? A certain guy could get away with it. Or you're like, you know what? Even at the best level, eventually it just becomes so toxic that it doesn't work.
Wow, that is a heck of a question. I would certainly give it a go. I mean, if we're winning the U.S. Open and if you're telling me, yeah, you know what, you play with this guy and you're going to be in contention for every major and he's going to try his hardest and yeah, you're going to... you know, do all those things, but he's going to treat you like crap. I'd still give it a go. Yeah. Okay. Fair. Because that's what I would think too. And I guess.
most people maybe overestimate where they are on that scale. So they're kind of the bossy jerky partner. And they're like, well, I'm the better guy. And you're like, yeah, but you're only slightly better. Like you're not good enough to pull all that stuff. I'll put it to you this. I'll tell you this. I would way rather have a partner who was straight up, whatever they were.
were thinking feeling about themselves me or whatever as opposed to someone who is just telling me they feel great all the time and and what I know that's not true you know I would rather have someone tell me that I'm a terrible player. I'm a terrible partner. If that's what they honestly think, then someone that's not going to say that. Yep. Uh, honesty is always the best. I read something and they were, they were debating that they thought being honest in life period all the time.
would make the world a better place completely because everyone would know where you stood. And even if you had to give someone a harsh truth, like if my wife was like, Hey, how'd you like, how was the food tonight? If I told her it was great when it wasn't, she's going to continue to make the same day forever.
for other people right and then they're not gonna and i could just rip the band-aid off and go you know what honestly it wasn't seasoned great it was a little cold i really appreciate like the work you put into it like the effort but like i think that's i mean
If that's the extent of honesty, I think it's way better for sure. Right. So if someone's like, if I said, hey, like I'm kind of struggling, like, yeah, you know, your returns look really uncomfortable. Like you should probably back up because you're struggling instead of being like, oh, no, no, you got the next one.
even though when deep inside you're like, you don't have that. I don't have squat. Yeah. And without going too much further into it, I really do think for me, that's why I felt like in my partnership with Joe for six years, I was able to play some of my best tennis. And so was he, because we.
He had no problem telling me, hey, listen, that backhand return is bogus today. Do something. Let's try something else. And I was the same way with him. And I think we set out thinking that whatever we were saying to each other was for the best of the team.
in the best interest of the team. So knowing that, anything goes, right? Because we're not saying this to say you're worse than me or you're the worst player on this team. No, it was like, if you play better, the team does better. So that's why I'm telling you what I think.
Last two questions. One of them is from a coach I do my doubles camps with, and we play Padel all the time. And he asked this because he knows I'm still like this, but he wanted to know how bossy I was as a doubles partner. I mean, you were definitely like you had your moments for sure.
¶ How bossy was I as a doubles partner?
But I think, like, to the same token, and I didn't understand this when we were 15 years old, but I think that's one of the reasons you and I played. really well together because I don't think we, we pulled any punches in a, in a bad way, you know, or sorry, in a good way. We didn't, we didn't hold anything back. I mean, we were, we were straight up as, as we knew how to be at that age. And so I think, uh, I think, I think it was quite a good quality and I wish I'd.
paid attention to why I think we played together a bit earlier. Yeah. It's interesting because I definitely am still bossy, right? But I actually want your thoughts on this because you're big on the performer and how you guys mesh together. A lot of times I just think I'm right. So I'm like, well, you do need to pinch middle because they've returned there five times in a row. I have objective data to show you.
that we need to be there like this is not my opinion yeah so that's why like i'm feeling like i'm helping the team and then obviously this guy in particular carlos is like i don't want to hear it right now which i totally respect right so when you're out there
Do you ever feel like you have to get in that mode or do you think usually you and your pro partner are seeing things objectively very similarly where you're like, yeah, we are getting roasted line. And if you throw it out there, he's like, yeah, you know what? You're right. I've seen that. Or sometimes that bossiness come through.
In a negative way. Yeah, I think if you're in like, you know, year three or four of a partnership, I think you could butt heads a little bit there because you feel like you've heard it for three or four years. You know, like if it's. week one or week three or month three, I think it's a lot less to, it'd be a lot less like that because I don't think...
I don't think either player would be able to just sort of go out and say it. So I think you would sugarcoat it a little bit more. Even though you want to get your point across, it wouldn't be just quite so blunt. But I feel like when you get further along in a partnership, and the best example of that.
for me are the Brian brothers, right? I mean, you know, you hear them talk about stuff and they got to proper fights, you know, a lot of times because they literally been playing doubles together their whole life. But when it came to it, they were always trying to, you know. do the best they could for their team. And I think that's where for me, when, when it kind of got to that point with Joe, it was so important for us to have like a good support system around. So maybe it's not.
I'm not all the time, I'm not saying it straight to him or he's not saying it straight to me. Maybe he's going through the coach or going through somebody else to say, what is this guy doing? This is ridiculous. And the coach can say, hey, maybe, you know. think about this and sort of say it in a way where it's getting the message across but i'm not hearing it from my partner okay so we're establishing that i'm kind of a dick as a partner but but here's here's bossy bossy bossy's different
Here's my counter to what you just said. You said, well, maybe if you've been together for three years, you're like, I'm sick of hearing it. I would also argue if you've been making that mistake for three years, I'd be like, I'm sick of saying it.
Yeah. You're supposed to be there. So like one thing I always love from a partner is you're not failing the same way. Oh, you got beat middle, then you got beat line and you're making it happen when you repeatedly. Hey, I just dumped five returns of the net.
You think you want to aim higher on the next one? When do we want to try a lob perhaps? Exactly. But you miss net. Then you miss long. Then you miss net. Then you miss long. I'm like, oh, he's just struggling. Like, what can he do? Like, he's obviously trying his best. So that would be my counter is like, if you feel like you're.
hearing it from me a lot I'd be like I don't really love saying it either but I'm watching the same thing like Groundhog's Day yeah no I agree with that completely by the way I think I was meaning more in the sense of just hearing anything because you've heard things happen and like it's like
I mean, this guy's talking to me about my forehand, and he's talking to me about my backhand, and he's talking about my serve, and he's talking about my positioning. I was meaning it more in that sense. But I do totally agree with you. And to add to that point, I'll say the best players in the world. Lose are the best losers and that I mean they don't lose the same way if they're losing They change something they might lose again, but they're able to just understand
what's happening, why they're losing, not keep losing the same way. I feel like that's a big part of being good at this sport. I'm going to give you a couple seconds on this because I want it to be something we haven't talked about today. The last question was, what is your best doubles advice basically for 2026? Mainly for a recreational player, but maybe something that scales to all levels.
Uh, I know what you said on previous podcasts and I, and I, and I know you haven't. So if you say the same thing, I'm going to buzz you right away and be like, give me something new. And I don't want it to be something we talked about today. So what's your best advice for 2026 and doubles? Okay. So I'm guessing I can't.
say be a good partner. No. Yeah, because I've said that before. Correct. And you've also mentioned it today. Yes. Very important. We love it. But you can go back in the archives like 2023 Rajiv said be a good partner. Okay, so if we're not talking, I've probably said most things when it comes to performer stuff. So I'm going to say at the recreational level, I do not see people working on overheads anywhere near. You know why I love you? Because that was last year's, I believe.
No way. Is that what I said last year? I swear to God, it was either last year or the year before. Because when you said it, I was like, preach, son. Yes, absolutely. Well, then I got another one for you then. Let's take it back one more time. And I hope I haven't said this, but the one shot. or the two shots that happen every single point are serve and return. It's boring. And you talked about, you know, what if my partner's in the way? I don't really know where the serve's going.
how much better of a player would you be if you could stand there and say, yeah, I'm going to hit this tee. And by the way, it's going to go tee. I'm not going to like hit it in the box. I'm not going to hit this lollipop second serve. Like I'm going to hit a real serve. And I mean, it's, it's not.
enjoyable it's not like the most fun thing to go hit the ball back and forth but if you take a bucket of serves and you hit 20 serves a day and you just try to find the rhythm and you work with somebody and whatever you can and by the same token maybe you and your partner go out
You hit a serve, they hit a return. You hit a serve, they hit a return. I mean, you're going to be so far ahead of the game because while it is important to be a good volleyer and it is important to be a good groundstroker, if you can't get past the serve and the return, none of that stuff matters.
That answer will suffice. That's new and excellent. And I absolutely can't believe I said the overhead thing. I honestly knew you were. That's why I was like, I'm going to buzz this guy because I know you're going to go back. But by the way, amazing, right? Because. The number one complaint at the recreational level is people lob all the time. And I'm like, well, they don't lob Rajiv all the time because if they don't hit a good one, he's going to freaking smash it. He's got to get over it.
I did a clinic just the other day in Louisville at a club. And I mean, it was like, it was like the same thing. I felt like I said, it was like the free throw in basketball. Like. or the sand shot in golf you know it's like for some reason if you have me and you out there in the sand or at least me i should say i mean i'm a plumber i hit the ball okay but i go in the sand and you get these pros they want to be in the sand they prefer it over some of the other situations and it's like
Why? I mean, I should, I should, I should be better at that. Like, it's not that difficult. You know, if I can hit the ball, okay, I should be better at that. I love that. So you need to work on your saying game as well. I need to work on my saying, bro. Yeah. It's not great with a funky elbow, but yeah.
Yeah, I work on it. It still sucks. All right. Hey, listen, I hope that elbow gets healthy. Hopefully see you in Aussie with Edden. Can't wait to watch that. You are the best. You are so thoughtful. I've loved your stuff on TV. I hope we see more of that. Maybe not as much this year because hopefully you're playing a ton.
In the future, we can all learn from you, but you're the best, man. That's awesome, man. I love being here. All right. I want to thank Rajiv for coming on the show again. You're going to be seeing him on TV for years to come. He's great at articulating the nuances of the game.
My takeaway from today's episode, and he mentioned this a few times, was how the best teams are unpredictable. Obviously, if you're running a play and it's always working, just keep running it. But when you're playing an opponent your level or better, you need to use variety to your advantage. Run different formations.
Choose different serves on different scorelines and see if you can get your opponent guessing and uncomfortable. As always, thanks for listening. I hope you just improved to tennis without even hitting a ball.