Serving in Doubles

I am not the only one. I serve differently in doubles than I do in singles. And I am not so sure this is a good thing.

I serve harder in singles than I do in doubles and I have noticed the same in others. If I miss the first serve in singles, no big deal. If however, I float a safe second serve, at say 70% in for doubles, my partner at the net might lose his neck- literally!

I am willing to suffer the consequences more in singles for a weak 2nd serve but in doubles, I will pull back to 80-85% power on a first serve - not wanting to fear an aggressive second serve return.

There are others however, that DO serve the same in singles as well as doubles. And these people also generally serve the same first and second serve. This explains why some of my friends in doubles who I partner with will have 6 to 8 double faults, in a set! I am not upset with them but feel bad for them as they probably feel lousy for letting me down.

What's the secret? Not sure, I may have to query the Bryan Bros, tandem team extraordinaire! But for me, for now, I will continue to move my serves around the box, mixing flat and spin and work on beefing up my 2nd serve to a 75-80% power.

So what about you? Do you have a different serve based on playing singles or doubles?

Paying Attention Out There!

Two things.

I am playing the other day and it occurs to me that when I lose a game at love, it's generally 4 points in about 75 seconds. One and two ball rallies typify these games so guess what? When I am down at Love-40, I now try and just keep the ball in play and play a longer point. Since making this adjustment I have begun to win a higher percentage of these games, but it started with PAYING ATTENTION to my game and recognizing a pattern.

Numero dos. I played with a friend last week and I had never played him in singles before, only in doubles. I noticed that when serving on the deuce court, he would clobber his forehand return to me. BUT on the AD court he would actually prefer a backhand to return and would at times run around his forehand. There was something about the angle of the serve, or something else that wouldn't meet his eye about that forehand return that he didn't like. Knowing this led me to serve to him more effectively. So to reiterate and again remind readers, "the unexamined tennis game is not worth playing."