Hey everyone, welcome to the 53rd episode of Baseline Intelligence, the podcast designed to make you a better tennis player and a smarter athlete. I'm your host, Jonathan Stokey. On today's episode, I'll recap a few of my favorite doubles tips throughout the 2023 podcast season. So sit back, relax, and prepare to become a smarter tennis player.
I know a lot of you play a majority of doubles out there. So today I'm going to recap some of my favorite doubles tips that we got throughout the 2023 season. And to start off, we're going to go all the way back to the episode with Paul Anacone.
where he stresses not only communicating with your partner, but setting your team up where you and your partner can amplify each other's strengths and try to cover each other's weaknesses. I think the biggest theme is good communication with your partner.
because a lot of different styles and doubles are successful these days, but you have to have good communication with your partner. That way you can support each other and you really know how to cover each other's liabilities. And then if you do that... then that's the first thing, right, is the communication with your partner. And within that, it's understanding each other's game style and what you do well and what your partner doesn't do well. I wasn't a great returner of serve.
but I was a really good server. So my partner that I played with most of my career, Christo Van Rensburg, was a really good returner of serve. So he helped with my inconsistency on return. He didn't serve great, so I moved. well at the net and moved a lot, so I tended to help his serve. So you have to figure out how you work together to help each other shore up each of your liabilities, so to speak.
This is a super simple one to start with, but it often gets lost that you are playing on a doubles team. And so finding ways to help your partner hide their weaknesses and get them playing with confidence is so massive. Of course, you want to play well. But one of the things that you can do on the doubles court is to take small, simple actions and make sure that your doubles partner is playing at their best. And this is a tip that...
I'm sure a lot of you go, oh, yeah, yeah, we get it. Now give us the tennis stuff. Give us the on court. But it all starts with your communication and how you are with your partner. So we have to keep that in mind. Now we're going to get into tactics and actual shots. And it's nice to start with basic things. And Kelly Jones did a great job in his episode of explaining what the basic shots are that you have to execute to be a great doubles player.
The basics of doubles, serve, first serve percentage and returns. I mean, sometimes it gets overlooked, but if you talk to the best players like Raj, Rajiv Ram, and they talk about... The serve and return being such a huge, such an important piece of the doubles. So let's take the percentages of serves. Well, body serves are huge.
Back when I was playing, it was sort of evolving into that. I used it a lot because my serve wasn't as big as some of the others. So I didn't want to be hitting a lot of second serves. So I used body serve often and I could back that up with my volleys. And today, I think part of the problem is, is that especially with players that are maybe not as experienced, is that they're trying to hit big first serves. They're trying to hit aces on first serves and they end up hitting.
use second serves too often and they get in trouble so that's one of the the the fundamentals of things that you want to look at is how how well are the players using these percentages return a serve so If you've got players that are just ripping returns and not making a lot of returns, that's also a problem. But I would say, like, how do you use the court to make more returns? If you've got guys, the formations today are all over the place, which is a lot of fun to watch.
The goal is you've got to make returns. You've got to get the ball in play. So what gives you the most percentage, highest percentage to do that? Sometimes it's two back on both first and second serve. I want to get. that ball in play. I don't care if you lob, but whatever it takes, you've got to get the ball in play. And I think when you look at the, maybe not the highest levels, but if you look at the other levels of...
players that are trying to improve their doubles, that is one fundamental thing that you cannot overlook is that you've got to figure out ways to make returns. I don't care how you do it. You've got to figure it out. I find that all the best advice is simple advice, and that's exactly what we got from Kelly here. Body serves are huge because you can eliminate missing wide and you can jam your opponent so they can't take a full cut at the ball. So I love that he mentioned that.
And then making returns sounds so simple and way too common sense. And yet so many doubles teams donate at least one free point a game from a missed return. So make your opponents play on their serve. Make them earn every single point.
and that pressure will slowly build on them throughout the course of the match. So we're going to stick with more returns, and Mark Gellert had a great tip for how to return in doubles against the I formation. I think... A really important thing a lot of players that I'm surprised don't know with the doubles is to make sure that when you're returning, if your opponents are playing in an I formation, is that 80 to 90% of the time you want to be returning down the line.
If you're playing an eye formation, if the serving team is playing eye formation, return down the line because there is no finishing volley. So if the opponent goes that way... There's no simple finishing put away volley for them. But if you go cross court, the angles and the geometry of the court mean that you probably won't have a touch on that. They have a very simple volley.
Now, I know a lot of people at the amateur level don't play I-formation, but by the way, there should be a lot more of it. Not only do you limit your opponent's finishing volleys by going down the line with the return like you said, But I always felt like if you took the return early, you could rush them down the line and get it by them. So they don't even get a volley. When I used to play, the only options when people went eye against us were a return down the line or a lob cross court.
I honestly can't even remember when I would try going cross court against the eye because they're already covering that shot. So make sure you pay attention to this. If someone goes eye, it's an automatic down the line return for you. Now we're going to shift focus to net play. UNC Women's Head Coach Brian Calvis had some great advice on how to get the ball at its highest point and why that's important. Don't let the point reset, okay? When you hit an offensive shot...
or your partner hits an offensive shot, my biggest thing is nobody likes to be shorter in their height. Everybody likes to be taller. Correct? Right? To an extent, yes. Would you rather be shorter? Well, when I'm on the middle seat of an airplane, there are times where I've contemplated that. Generally speaking, I don't mind being tall. As an athlete, you want to be taller, okay? Correct, 100%. So in doubles?
If you're at the net, you want to hit the ball at its highest point. If you can get an overhead, hit an overhead. If you're hitting a volley, hit the volley above net level. Don't let the ball drop below net level. Don't be smaller or shorter, okay, when you can get. To me, though. Those players, they hesitate, they turn their body, okay? They become a waiter or a waitress, okay? And the ball drops, okay?
Try and be as tall as you possibly can on every shot, even at the baseline. Go get the ball. Don't let the ball drop. Get comfortable being uncomfortable, being aggressive, taking the ball on the rise. So a lot of players who message me and tell me they're not confident at the net, what happens is they get tentative, they stop their feet, and when you do that, it results in the ball dropping probably below the net.
And once the ball is low, it's no longer an easy volley to finish. But they kind of feel like they should have been aggressive since the initial ball was high. And so they play an aggressive shot. from below the net, which ends up in an error and it just kind of creates a vicious cycle of people losing confidence. So be aggressive with your feet and your mindset.
Get the ball at its highest point, like Coach Calvis said, and we'll see if we can play more offensive shots and start building that confidence. We're going to go back to Kelly Jones. He had one of my favorite tips from the year period about playing the net. when he talked about the three jobs you have when you're the server's partner? I'll tell you. It came from one of my doubles partners early on in my career.
he's serving i want you to get get the picture of this he's serving and he tells me he's starting to get he's getting pissed off at me because i'm not moving i'm not doing something so i learned a lesson this his tip was The one thing you're not allowed to do is do nothing. You've got three things you're responsible for. You either poach, you either fake, or you fake poach. The option is not nothing.
And he drove this into me like I'll never forget it because he taught me a really good lesson. I love to poach. I loved poaching. I won two NCAA doubles titles. I knew how to poach. But the problem was, is that I wasn't active as I could have been. And I wasn't drawing the ball. I wasn't causing confusion. I wasn't the off guy. I was not.
doing anything. I wasn't doing enough. So to answer that question is that was the best advice I ever received, which is three things, fake, poach, or fake and poach. And the fourth option is not an option. The fourth one is not an option. You do nothing. If you're not the guy with the ball, hitting the ball, you have to do something.
And just for clarification here, I've had a lot of comments on the Instagram videos when I use this soundbite. I've put that video out there a couple times. When Kelly says fake poach or fake poach. The last one, fake poach is a fake followed by a poach on the same ball. So you might fake really early and then end up going right before they hit.
And this is just to create a new rhythm, a new timing, take their eye off the ball and mess with your opponent. The goal is to be active. The goal is to cause chaos, to live in your opponent's head. So just remember that if you're at the net.
You should always be doing something. And now we're going to move to, obviously, who is my favorite guest, and I don't mind saying this because she starts every season, Jessica Bagula. And she's going to talk about how she needs to do a better job of closing. but how effective it is when her opponents are on top of the net and being active against her. That's what Dave's like, just keep moving in. We won Toronto and I was so far from the net.
And he was like, I don't think you realize it. So he took a video and showed me after. And I was like, oh, my God. I was like, what am I doing? And I don't know. Some days it's better. Some days it's worse compared to who I'm playing as well. But also just like. the pressure you put on your opponent. Like when I see the girls that close really hard against me, you like totally second guess when you're at the baseline. If you see them take that one step forward on top of the net.
You either miss the ball because you try to change direction or you try to change a go line and you have to hit like a perfect shot anyways, or you kind of bail out and go lob. But like the person's hitting the ball hard and deep, like it's not that easy to hit a lob, like a good one.
So yeah. And then you start thinking about all these things and that split second, you see her move and you're probably going to miss the ball. It makes sense on all levels. I just, am I efficient at doing it? And it definitely could be better. It's pretty telling that one of the best players in the world who has incredible ground strokes admits that it's distracting and difficult when the opposing net player is being a menace up there.
It should also make you feel a little better that she admits it's difficult for her to commit to closing on the net, even when she and Coco were ranked number one in the world at one point. So you'll notice that people struggle with these things at every level. a 2-5, a 3-5, a 4-5, a top junior, a top college player. This is something they're all working on. So if you struggle with it, don't take any shame. Just go to work and see if you can improve it one day at a time.
And our last tip of the day is going to come from this year's US Open doubles champion Aaron Routliff. And it's something I'm just going to keep stressing and you know it's coming. But this is her on not worrying about if you get beat in your alley down the line. Oh, not concerned at all. We always say that if it happens three times, then that's when we'll change the game plan. So if someone passes us, and if they're passing us and it's in the singles...
then that's probably something that we are doing incorrectly. But if it's in the doubles alley, then I would say that it's like has to happen three times before we change it. I'm not really concerned about that. That someone. If I'm doing my job as setting Gabby up or if she's doing her job setting me up, then that probably won't happen.
And if it does, then they're obviously like adjusting really well and then we'll change the game. You know what I mean? Like if I'm full crossing or if I'm looking, then someone's not really going to pass me like... They'd have to pass me the Dollars Alley. I think you have to give the opponents some of the court. You can't cover everything. And so if you're giving them the alley most of the time, that's okay. I have yet to hear a single coach or a player.
tell me they are really concerned about their down-the-line alley. And I hear 3-5 and 4-0 players tell me all the time how often they get burned there. But I just don't see it when they tag me in a Swing Vision video, when I see the ladies at my club play.
I'm just not seeing it that often. So if you can commit to learning from these players, learning from these coaches, and learn to cover the middle a little more and figure out when the best opportunities are to do that, you can make a massive jump in your net game. Before we end this episode, one thing I would love as a gift this holiday season is for you all to leave a rating and a review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen.
It's been so fun doing the podcast for a second year, and our audience has grown over five times in the last 12 months, which far exceeds anything I thought was possible. I'd love to hear from you how you're enjoying the show and how it's helped your game. So if you have a minute after this episode, please leave a review. It would be an incredible Christmas gift for me.