When Rob Olson and I won the 1984 USA National 35s Hardcourt Doubles title, our success that year was because of one very specific agreement we developed as doubles partner.

Brent's Detailed Doubles Court Positioning Lesson - Click Here For Details

We trusted each other.  And that’s about as general a cliche as there is, but trust in doubles is really just about one simple fact.

I can’t say this enough about doubles…

When you’re about to play a shot, it’s all about playing a shot that sets up your partner, AND when your partner is about to play a shot, it’s all about you trusting that your partner is trying to set you up so you will move to the right court position to take advantage of that set up.

Look, let’s be real about this, not every shot results in a set up, obviously, BUT it may simply take 2-3 shots to finally get a ball to where the set up presents itself.

Where you move on the court when you don’t have the ball is really what makes or breaks the success of a doubles partnership.

When I started to really trust that my partner and I were truly playing shots to enable the other, that’s when my success as a doubles player took off.

Look, you don’t have to have the biggest shots out there to be a really good doubles player.  And you don’t have to be the fastest player out there on the court.

You simply have to know where to move on the court to create some pretty lousy geometry for your opponents.

OK, let me know your thoughts.  Leave a comment in the area below.

What specifically do you wish you did better as the returner’s partner?

Brent

Doubles Strategies & Tactics

- Where To Be On The Court
When Your Partner Is Playing Their Shot –

How To Create Really Bad Geometry For Your Opponents
By Being In The Right Place At The Right Time
At Any Given Moment…

Brent’s Court Diagram Doubles Lesson

“Why & When To Be Where On The Doubles Court”

Click Here

Are you hoping to improve your tennis during 2011?  Yay or nay?

I’m serious – don’t be shy about telling me that you’re happy where your tennis game is right now and you have zero interest in making significant changes to a specific area of your game.

No problem for me if that’s where you’re at, I’d just like to know one way or the other.

If you are hoping to make minor to major changes to your game, then I’d like to know specifically what you feel you should be working on during 2011.

To me, tennis skills are sort of divided up into 5 main buckets.

1 – Stroke mechanics

2 – Movement & fitness

3 – Tactics & strategies

4 – Mental

5 – Practice & drills

Your ability to make improvements to your game are dependent on getting better in one or more of those 5 categories.

Which bucket are you hoping to improve upon for 2011?

If we’re having this conversation 365 days from now at the end of 2011, what specific areas of your game are you hoping that you can look back on and know that you really did make some tangible improvement?

I’d like to hear from you which of those skill areas you’d like to improve upon.  And again, if you’ve got no interest on trying to make changes, then let me know me that too.

Give me 3 and I’ll give you 10…

If you’ll give me 3 minutes to complete a questionnaire, I’ll give you a 10 minute lesson.

Sound like enough of a bribe?  Hope so!