Doubles Service Return

October 3, 2013 | By Bill Longua
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It remains an ongoing debate about which shots are the most important when playing doubles: The serve, volley or the return. I won’t try to solve that debate here, but I will tell you that all three are imperative to a solid doubles game, with the return of serve maybe the most strategic.

In singles tennis, the return is obviously easier because the whole court is available to hit into, while in doubles, we are required to hit to one-half and usually cross-court.

Let’s delve into our doubles return options. In classic serve and volley doubles, the server hits and comes to net. Now both partners are up at the net, a version of “King of the Hill." We need to keep our returns low so the oncoming server has to hit the volley up. There are two ways to accomplish this, either by shortening the backswing and brushing on up the ball to add topspin, or chipping the return, creating backspin. In either case, power is not the most important aspect, keeping the ball down is. In fact, less power is often more desirable. Remember, with topspin, we brush up, and with backspin, we brush down and out.

Many doubles teams are now playing one up and one back when serving. I feel that is a real plus for the receiving team, and the pressure of having to keep the return low is not a problem. That formation will free us up to drive the ball cross-court back to the server, it also gives us the opportunity to move into the net and be offensive.

There are two other returns we need to keep in mind. The first is to hit behind the net player, we need to keep that player honest so that he or she cannot continually poach our returns. If the net player sees that we always hit cross-court, it allows them to move closer to the middle of the court and pick off our returns. Second, is the return lob down the line over the net person’s head. This return is strategic when we are having a tough time catching up to the pace of the serve, or we want to get the opponents out of their comfortable formations.

Doubles returns … don’t take them lightly! Check out www.onlinetennistraining.com. Good luck and have fun!


Bill Longua
Director of Tennis/Head Pro at Palm Island Resort

Bill Longua is the tennis director/head pro at Palm Island Resort in Cape Haze, Fla. Bill is a member of the USPTA, has been teaching tennis for more than 35 years, and is the author of Winning Tennis Strokes. Bill also enjoys teaching tennis on his Web site, http://onlinetennistraining.com. Please check out Brent’s Shearer’s Literary Corner for his review of Winning Tennis Strokes. Take advantage of the download version sale by going to http://onlinetennistraining.com/usopen. He may be reached at bill@onlinetennistraining.com.

 

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