Here at Cliff Drysdale Tennis, our coaches spend hundreds of thousands of hours each year teaching players of all levels how to be a better doubles player. Now, we've taken our Doubles Boot Camp from the court to EXPERIENCE, so you too can learn about the most effective strategies, techniques and play-styles that will allow you to dominate the doubles court. Over the next few weeks we'll be rolling out the entire course.

First up, one of our most important coaching points in doubles is that you have to be aggressive and want to take change of the net. Too often we see players that are simply at net just to stand there and watch the ball go past them. Scott Colebourne teaches the Martini Glass movement technique, and follows it up with a few drills to help you understand why closing the net and poaching is so important. 

In this video, we demonstrate the best strategy for shot selection when you are rallying from the baseline in doubles. Too often players choose to go:

• Down the line
• At the net player
• Deep cross court

While on *select* occasions these are viable plays, they are certainly not as effective as aiming cross court for the Sideline "T". This gives us a safe target and should allow us to play the highest percentage tennis going forward. It accomplishes three main things:

• Keeps ball away from net player
• Creates angles for your team, opens up the middle for your partner
• Forces baseline player to move for next shot

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When volleying in doubles, we see two common mistakes:
1)Going right at the net player
2)Volleying back to the baseline player

Option 1 is only viable if you have an easy floater that you're sure you can hit down on. Most players have good enough hands and reflexes to get that ball back unless you hit the volley/overhead with serious force. 

Option 2 is basically restarting the point and giving up your advantage.

So we recommend in most situations to volley up the middle. This creates confusion for the opposing team and will allow us to more easily put the next ball in a winning position.