Dartagnan64
G.O.A.T.
The socks are sitting on our sideboard hoping someday my wife will actually pick them up and do the drill I taught her. Glad you wife is receptive to coaching. I wish......
The Mixed Up Warm-Up
- Thread starter Cindysphinx
- Start date
The socks are sitting on our sideboard hoping someday my wife will actually pick them up and do the drill I taught her. Glad you wife is receptive to coaching. I wish......
While the female physiology plays some part in how hard they can serve and hit the ball and all of that - that's no different than any other aspect of the game. I'm not trying to start some battle of the sexes here, but inherently, the motion of serving "properly" for women vs. men is not limited by either's physiology. The hardest women servers may never be able to match the hardest male servers, but that's a product of biology itself and the inherent physical strength capacity each sex has, not something that limits the actual biomechanics of the motion (again, except for maximum velocity).
To clarify a few things... one of the first things my wife said when she saw other women playing tennis was "I don't EVER want to serve like a girl!" (her words, not mine). So she was a captive audience and receptive to coaching from me initially to get her started on understanding that there was a path there, and then from real coaches who continue to refine her serve. There are women out there who have faster WT serves than my wife does for sure, better accuracy, better placement, etc. but they've been doing it for years and years. My wife picked up a racquet for the first time in January of 2017, and her "legit" serve is getting better and better every day. So I am obviously very proud of her. I always tell her that the WT serve is a lot like bowling a straight ball as opposed to a hook - there's pretty much a ceiling to how good you can be with either (and the exceptions prove the rule)... with a "proper" serve, just like a hook ball in bowling, there's a much much higher ceiling...
As for the "at least I won't double fault" thing, well that could be for a lot of women, but it's hard for me personally to really understand that... to me, that sounds like "I'm never going to try to be better than I am, and am content with my game even though returners feast on my serve and shove it down my partner's throat"... perhaps it's the old baseball pitcher in me that makes such a thing intolerable, but there you have it. I would rather double fault a whole game away than have the opponents be able to just rip the sh*t out of my serve for winners at will. With that said, I am sure there are a fair number of women (and men) who feel and play that way, and if that suits them, then I guess that's OK for them. I could never live with that though, personally.
Cindysphinx
G.O.A.T.
But returners don't always feast on weak serves. Many returners blast one for a winner and then miss the next two. So who is winning then?
As for me, I am mystified at players (frequently men but some women) who tolerate a huge number of DFs because they insist on hitting every serve as hard as they possibly can. Isn't this embarrassing? Why don't they learn a real second serve? I don't get it.
I don't just push my serve in, and I don't go for aces. I serve as well as I can given my level, age, and strength will allow. If someone is really taking advantage of my serve, I adjust in ways other than trying to serve harder. And if they can keep it up, then they are better than me.
You are absolutely correct about all of this, in my opinion. I totally understand your perspective and don't argue the validity of what you're saying at all, I promise you. What I said above was all about my own very personal perspective on the issue. I fully expect that it may not be everyone's perspective and probably isn't the "smartest" way to play according to canon, but at my level of play and my age, I know I'll never be sponsored or anything like that, and if I ever make it to legit 4.5 rating/ranking, it will likely be a miracle. The only reason I'm playing is for personal enjoyment, and for me, that means a few things that I'm sure aren't the same as everyone else's motivations.
With that said, and I've said this recently here, maybe even in this thread, I can't remember, it does annoy the crap out of me to hear "I haven't double faulted in X games!" from people that I know can't hold their serve without the opponents making a ton of mistakes or their partner going through heroics... that doesn't mean I don't like them as people, it means I don't want to be their doubles partner if I care about the outcome of the match. I hope that makes sense and doesn't come off as douchey...
Cindysphinx
G.O.A.T.
I hear you, Cawlin.
For years and years, I considered myself a power player. A closer. A player who went for a lot. I know, I know -- by the standards of this board my "power" was nothing. But I felt like my strength was in finishing points, and I was there to have fun. Going for it was fun. My mistakes were quickly forgotten, but the memory of the clean winner never faded.
I don't play that way now. I don't know, I finally just kind of changed. I got tired of making so many errors, but mostly, I noticed that power wasn't beating anyone at 4.0. Opponents had as much power or more, but more importantly, they seemed quite skilled in returning my best "finishing" shot. Meanwhile, I was still making a bunch of mistakes every match.
I'm now working very hard on being in good balance, hitting a technically sound shot, and in placing every ball in a smart place. I forget sometimes and my old ball bashing tendencies come out. But I am kind of noticing that a well-placed volley with 50% pace wins the point more often than a hastily blasted one that lacks intention. And winning with finesse is just as much fun.
I'm also noticing that playing with control and intention is *work.* This is definitely a long-term project; I sometimes miss a shot and ask myself what my target was and realize that I didn't have one. Ugh.
I can see why it might be frustrating to have a partner who never DFs but doesn't attack the serve either. Still . . . a serve is like any other shot. You can decide to be conservative in what you try to achieve, or you can take risk. Each person has to decide how much he/she can achieve with the serve. For me, I would far prefer a partner who is conservative with the serve rather than blasts a lot of DFs. If my partner starts the point with a weak serve, we still have lots of options for how we might win the point. If she bashes, we never had a chance.
For years and years, I considered myself a power player. A closer. A player who went for a lot. I know, I know -- by the standards of this board my "power" was nothing. But I felt like my strength was in finishing points, and I was there to have fun. Going for it was fun. My mistakes were quickly forgotten, but the memory of the clean winner never faded.
I don't play that way now. I don't know, I finally just kind of changed. I got tired of making so many errors, but mostly, I noticed that power wasn't beating anyone at 4.0. Opponents had as much power or more, but more importantly, they seemed quite skilled in returning my best "finishing" shot. Meanwhile, I was still making a bunch of mistakes every match.
I'm now working very hard on being in good balance, hitting a technically sound shot, and in placing every ball in a smart place. I forget sometimes and my old ball bashing tendencies come out. But I am kind of noticing that a well-placed volley with 50% pace wins the point more often than a hastily blasted one that lacks intention. And winning with finesse is just as much fun.
I'm also noticing that playing with control and intention is *work.* This is definitely a long-term project; I sometimes miss a shot and ask myself what my target was and realize that I didn't have one. Ugh.
I can see why it might be frustrating to have a partner who never DFs but doesn't attack the serve either. Still . . . a serve is like any other shot. You can decide to be conservative in what you try to achieve, or you can take risk. Each person has to decide how much he/she can achieve with the serve. For me, I would far prefer a partner who is conservative with the serve rather than blasts a lot of DFs. If my partner starts the point with a weak serve, we still have lots of options for how we might win the point. If she bashes, we never had a chance.
S&V-not_dead_yet
Talk Tennis Guru
The people who say that simply are only considering one variable and ignoring others [like service winners].
If I have 0 DFs and 0 SWs, I haven't done much to hold serve. Especially if my net partner is getting pummelled by my weak, never DF serves.
I go entire matches without DFing but I've come to recognize that this is a negative because I'm not getting enough SWs. So I'm working on amping up my serve and am willing to accept more DFs if it means I get even more SWs.
In rec play, often returns are the same whether the serve is good or bad!
There's a lot of wisdom in this post and I hope we aren't talking past each other. FWIW, I love hearing about the evolution of your game, thank you for sharing in these honest terms. I respect what you have said here and respect your approach to the game. My own tennis journey only started in earnest 2 years ago at age 47... I am finding out some of the things you're talking about in this post first hand as well. If you are in the mood for a long read that is sometimes rambling and sometimes silly, but hopefully not terribly boring or self-aggrandizing, I wrote down a lot of how I got to this point (mostly focused on serving) in my game in this post. My game at this point is very much a hodge podge. I've got my serve to a point that even on a bad day, I can live with it, but my ground and net game both need a lot of work. My coach says my playstyle is a "shot maker"... which is a nice way of saying that I'm impatient and go for too much, too often, and am not yet skilled enough to pull off the shots that I often try for. I need to get solid fundamentals, balance, footwork, timing, hitting with intent to spots, playing "one more ball", etc. until I get the right opportunity for the winner/put away. Instead, I force the winner, trying for the banana ball down the line, or the CC laser or the super finesse shot, or whatever else with all too often predictably bad results.
I hear you, and thank you for acknowledging that there are more dimensions to this that simply DFs. I totally agree. For me, serving is like pitching in baseball, it sets the tone for the game, and in singles it can set the tone for the match, even in doubles if one person out of 4 has a dominant serve, it has significant, but not necessarily match defining impact as well. For me personally, if I couldn't serve well, I probably wouldn't be playing tennis.
With that said, I don't believe that someone that doesn't have a "dominant" serve is a de facto liability, at any level of play. If a person can place their non-dominating serve in a doubles match, as a team, you can work with that - find the place where the receiving partner doesn't like the serve, whether it's running up for a short one, or on their backhand or up the T or whatever. I honestly don't believe that the ratio of DFs to SWs is as important as "service games held" as a stat. For example, even if you have a soft serve that you can place, and you're setting your partner up with putaways, what's wrong with that? There are all types of scenarios that we could talk about, but in doubles, serve holds is the most important serving stat in my opinion, almost everything else is ego. Of course, if you're barely holding your serve because of DFs, or a patty cake serve that you can't place, or because your partner is pulling muscles and having to come up with one in a million shots to hold it, some work probably needs to be done, but over time, those issues will show up in your serve hold rate. In my opinion, regardless of what anyone else says, holding your serve in doubles ranges from being at least 50% to at most 90%+ the server's responsibilty.
I could go on with anecdotes about this, but this one I feel bears sharing. The former captain of our mixed team used to hold forth on his opinions about the game despite the fact that he hadn't played (or even practiced) in years. He was sometimes on the mark in my opinion, but much of what he said was garbage. One of his opinions was about serves and he would say stuff like "I don't know why everyone gets so wrapped up in their serve. If you look at a typical match at this level, the number of times you hit the ball for a serve is something like less than 7% of the total strokes."
One day I told him that I thought this was flat-out bullsh*t. He waved me off. It was during a team practice where we pair off and each line plays each other for 4 serve games and then rotates. That day I was serving particularly well, so I decided to go for broke even though it was just practice - first serve max speed blaster right up the T, ace. 15-0. Next point, max speed blaster out wide, ace, 30-0, next serve max speed blaster up the T, just to prove the first wasn't a fluke, ace 40-0. Next serve, another max speed blaster out wide, just missed, when I'm up 40-0, I don't hit a second serve, I serve another first serve if I miss, second serve: max speed blaster up the T, ace. I turned to the captain and asked him what percent of that game's strokes was serves?
Obviously, my little anecdote is an extreme case (and one I can't repeat on command, but have repeated in a few matches) to illustrate how an equally extreme statement was BS, but the real point is that serves matter, even if it's not a super strong serve, it still matters.
I have seen this as well and agree... and I think that this is one of the reasons a lot of rec players don't feel motivated to improve their serves - not enough people are making them pay for weak serves. Of course, that's fine if a person's intent is to never advance, there's nothing wrong with that at all... but if you want to advance...
Dartagnan64
G.O.A.T.
You have learned the secret to adult rec doubles. Hardest shot doesn't always win. I'm trying to get this mentality out of my wife. She feels if her hard shot comes back, she must hit harder. Whereas the answer is, "if your hard shot comes back, you must hit to a different place".
It's more about creating a service game that puts you in an advantage in the point from the start. If you can't outright create winners, you need to work with placement and communication to get returns that start the point out in your favor. Everyone can do this with a modicum of focus but sadly its a lost art to a lot of tennis players including the ones that take lessons every week improving their "serves".
I hate getting broken in doubles even though I know I have a weak serve and always will thanks to a bum shoulder. But I can work a service game to get to peoples weaker sides and make them have to move for balls and that gets weaker returns and better opportunities for my partner to poach and finish. I also communicate to my partner where my serves are going so they are prepared. It's a bit more work but if you can't bring the heat, you gotta do something else.
How do you advance beyond 4.5? There are some 4.5 men and many 4.5 women who serve with a pancake grip, though admittedly the men's serves are really not at 4.5, but their overall game is.
Couldn't agree more with this! There are a lot of ways to skin that cat.
I have no idea how to advance beyond 4.5. I'm not that good of a player myself, but if I ever get to 5.0, I promise you, I'll post about how I did it here.
As I said above, there are a lot of ways to skin the cat. A WT serve isn't necessarily a non-starter - but it does have a ceiling as far as serve performance/excellence that is lower than the ceiling for the "proper" serve motion. Whether or not the individual player is able to take advantage of that difference, and/or whether or not the performance difference they're able to achieve helps them be competitve at whatever level they're playing is kind of an individual thing. I.e. if it's good enough for you, where you are, then maybe it's good enough, period.
S&V-not_dead_yet
Talk Tennis Guru
The only way I can see making it to 5.0 is to improve my serve and to at least be able to neutralize on the return. Currently, I'd say my returns are the weaker of the two.
S&V-not_dead_yet
Talk Tennis Guru
At high levels maybe. At rec levels, no. Recs do not have great serves.
On this we disagree: unless I can serve aces and winners, a good portion of those serves are coming back and I'm relying on my net partner to be aggressive and to finish. If he's not and he's either ineffective with the volley or camping in the alley, it's going to be very difficult for our team to hold. If I'm at net and we don't hold, I blame myself at least partially for not having done more.
So you're not willing to take even half of the responsibility for holding your own serve?
Cindysphinx
G.O.A.T.
Put it this way.
If we do not hold my partner's serve, and if I didn't hit at least two winners, then I am equally responsibility for losing that game provided that my partner put the serve in play.
Sure... but what does that have to do with holding your own serve (i.e. when you are the one serving)?
Cindysphinx
G.O.A.T.
Put it this way. Once I serve, doesn't my partner have a responsibility to help win that point? As we're a team, isn't their responsibility at least 50%? And given that they are starting with their nose on the net (so in an offensive position), don't they have an even greater responsibility to help us hold serve? The net player is much better positioned to finish a point than the server, and that is her main responsibility for that game.
I don't even like to describe loss of a service game the way most people do. It is not "my" service game or "your" service game. It is "our" service game, and we both have to hold it.
I don't even like to describe loss of a service game the way most people do. It is not "my" service game or "your" service game. It is "our" service game, and we both have to hold it.
S&V-not_dead_yet
Talk Tennis Guru
When my team is serving, both the server and the net person have responsibilities. When my team fails to hold, one or both of us didn't do a great job [or the opponents were just better]. I just don't quantify like you do.
S&V-not_dead_yet
Talk Tennis Guru
You view holding serve as being mostly the responsibility of the server. To me, that's a singles-oriented philosophy. I don't look at it that way when I play doubles.
S&V-not_dead_yet
Talk Tennis Guru
I'm with you. IME, when it comes to playing with peers in skill, the people who complain about their partner not being able to hold serve are themselves doing very little at the net to make things happen [they alley camp, never poach, only venture towards the middle when it's a wounded duck return, don't signal, take very little risk, etc. In other words, they aren't playing high-level doubles strategy.].
Cindysphinx
G.O.A.T.
Right.
And if we don't hold my partner's service game and I didn't touch the ball, I tell her I'm sorry and will try to do more next time around. And it's the truth.
And if we don't hold my partner's service game and I didn't touch the ball, I tell her I'm sorry and will try to do more next time around. And it's the truth.
Cindysphinx
G.O.A.T.
Don't forget "are just basically bad at playing net and booted a couple of easy shots."
Yeah, as the server, if you're not willing to take at least half of the responsibility of holding your serve - and just getting the serve in play does not comprise your half of the responsibility for holding that serve, then you're not holding up your end of the deal. If you blame your partner for not selling out to poach the returns of your serve, then you'd better keep your mouth shut when your partner gets beaten down the line because you can't have it both ways. If your serve is weak and without placement, your partner either has to stay home and protect the line/alley, OR sell out to poach, not both.
This game is all about breaking and holding serve, that's how it goes. Certainly doubles is a team effort, but not being willing to accept responsibility for having a garbage serve is no different than not being willing to accept responsibility for having crap ground strokes or volleys.
Further, what usually happens in my mixed matches is that when my partner serves, the opponents might try me out at the net once or twice, and if I've poached aggressively, they may try to go down the line on me, but usually after one or two additional putaways there, they just keep the ball wide to my partner on their returns so it can't be poached. Then it's my partner's responsibilty to hit it back and ALSO avoid their net player and so on and so forth. It's mixed, so the universal rule is to hit to the woman until or unless the man proves to be the weaker player. So points go on and on like that and when my partner is serving, I may not touch a ball at all during the point. However, I'm moving laterally with the play - pinching the middle or covering the alley as play dictates. Even if I don't get the chance to touch a ball, I am still doing my job by forcing my opponents to take increasingly lower percentage shots into smaller spaces or they risk giving me a putaway chance.
When I'm serving in mixed, I know that my opponents aren't often going to be able to do more than hit a neutral ball on the return, most times, if they return my serve at all, it's a weak return. I also know that my female partner isn't going to cross the center line to poach, so I know I will be fielding every ball that isn't an outright "gimme" to her at the net. I also know that I need to do a lot with that next stroke because the opponents will immediately settle into the "hit to the girl" strategy and keep it away from me for the rest of the point if they can. So I take pretty much full responsibility for not letting them do that and I consider holding my own serve to be closer to 90% of my own responsibility.
This game is all about breaking and holding serve, that's how it goes. Certainly doubles is a team effort, but not being willing to accept responsibility for having a garbage serve is no different than not being willing to accept responsibility for having crap ground strokes or volleys.
Further, what usually happens in my mixed matches is that when my partner serves, the opponents might try me out at the net once or twice, and if I've poached aggressively, they may try to go down the line on me, but usually after one or two additional putaways there, they just keep the ball wide to my partner on their returns so it can't be poached. Then it's my partner's responsibilty to hit it back and ALSO avoid their net player and so on and so forth. It's mixed, so the universal rule is to hit to the woman until or unless the man proves to be the weaker player. So points go on and on like that and when my partner is serving, I may not touch a ball at all during the point. However, I'm moving laterally with the play - pinching the middle or covering the alley as play dictates. Even if I don't get the chance to touch a ball, I am still doing my job by forcing my opponents to take increasingly lower percentage shots into smaller spaces or they risk giving me a putaway chance.
When I'm serving in mixed, I know that my opponents aren't often going to be able to do more than hit a neutral ball on the return, most times, if they return my serve at all, it's a weak return. I also know that my female partner isn't going to cross the center line to poach, so I know I will be fielding every ball that isn't an outright "gimme" to her at the net. I also know that I need to do a lot with that next stroke because the opponents will immediately settle into the "hit to the girl" strategy and keep it away from me for the rest of the point if they can. So I take pretty much full responsibility for not letting them do that and I consider holding my own serve to be closer to 90% of my own responsibility.
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Dartagnan64
G.O.A.T.
When I'm playing mixed as the better partner holding both players serves is my job.
When I serve all I ask is my partner a) put away sitters and b) cover that alley if I hit out wide. If they do that I can usually get control of the point to target the opponents weaker player and win.
When my partner is serving, all I ask is a) don't DF, b) have a modicum of directional control and c) hit the serve down the T or to the BH as much as possible. If they do that I can usually get my racket on a few balls to put things away.
If my partner cannot finish sitters, cover the alley or serve to BH's they need to go and fix that or we will struggle as a doubles team holding serve. It's all about giving your partner easy balls and them being able to help get the ball directed my way.
When I serve all I ask is my partner a) put away sitters and b) cover that alley if I hit out wide. If they do that I can usually get control of the point to target the opponents weaker player and win.
When my partner is serving, all I ask is a) don't DF, b) have a modicum of directional control and c) hit the serve down the T or to the BH as much as possible. If they do that I can usually get my racket on a few balls to put things away.
If my partner cannot finish sitters, cover the alley or serve to BH's they need to go and fix that or we will struggle as a doubles team holding serve. It's all about giving your partner easy balls and them being able to help get the ball directed my way.
S&V-not_dead_yet
Talk Tennis Guru
I never said I'm unwilling to take responsibility. I said that both server and net person have roles to play and that both are important for holding serve. I disagreed with your "90%" estimate.
The exception would be if the server [typically the guy] has a next-level serve that can simply overwhelm the other team and he's off that day. Then, as the server, I'd tell my partner "my bad; my serve just isn't working today".
I try not to blame my partner for anything. I try to figure out solutions to problems.
I don't have a big serve so I don't expect my partner to poach. It also depends on how comfortable they are poaching: if they aren't comfortable in general, they're not going to suddenly be able to flip a switch during a match. But if they are open to suggestion, I might tell them to poach occasionally just to try and get in the returners' heads.
If I knew my partner was poaching [ie she signalled] and the returner went DTL and we lost the point, that's my fault. I was supposed to cover DTL and I failed.
If I didn't know my partner was poaching [ie it was opportunistic, especially during the rally], then I certainly wouldn't blame my partner. I'd say "good shot" and move on.
Why does it have to be "either/or"? The other team will figure this out quickly and all uncertainty will be removed. I don't want the returner to be that comfortable. Even at the expense of losing some points, I want to establish uncertainty.
Again, no one ever wrote that partners should abandon responsibility. If my serve is weak relative to the opponents' returns, then that's a problem we have to work out. My serve isn't suddenly going to improve so we have to try things: different formations, different placement, different spin, etc. It's not just the server's responsibility, IMO: I as the net man have to do everything I can to help my server partner out.
What if you occasionally poached just to see if you could disrupt the opponent's shot? Even if you get burned DTL, it might pay off later in the match when you fake poach.
Great strategy. I try to do the same.
Why? Did you tell her not to cross or is it based on her tendencies and abilities? I would encourage my female partner to cross if that's what it takes to get the best volley. I tell her not to worry about DTL; that's my task.
I don't think our approaches are all that much different.
OnTheLine
Hall of Fame
I also disagree. If I am sending it serves that get popped up for an easy volley and my partner dumps it into the net over and over .... that is not on me. I consider it my job as a server to either serve so well it doesn't come back at all or to set up my partner at net. I can do the former at better than 30%, but I rely on my partner the other 70%.
When playing with a partner that cannot volley (but insists on trying to) I am going to alter my serve so the ball comes back to me avoiding my partner. Well, now I just made the match much more difficult.
I don't disagree at all, actually... when my partner is serving, if I don't hold up my end of the deal (to me, at least 50% as the non-serving partner), then I don't expect to hold. However, there are some times (quite a number in my experience) where my partner just doesn't have a serve that is any challenge to return at all AND they can't place it AT ALL, then as you say, we will struggle as a doubles team holding serve.
I elaborated on my "90%" estimate in the post you quoted... that high responsibility estimate is assumed by the stronger server, for the reasons I discussed. I typically only experience this in mixed, not in men's doubles.
At the risk of sounding self-aggrandizing, I am that guy with the "next level" serve at my level, but with a ground game that needs work. On days when I am not hitting aces and unreturnable serves though, the other team zeroes in on my partner with the "hit to the woman" strategy, which forces me to try to do more and more with any/every ball I touch - and unfortunately, as I noted, my ground game needs work, so if I can't come up with a winner on the only ball after the serve that I may touch in a point, which may be the opponents return to me, it's likely just going to be the other team hitting to my partner for the duration of the point.
You should talk to the women I play with that have patty-cake serves, because the worse their serve is, the more they complain and blame me for not helping them hold their serve enough... meanwhile if I sell out to poach, and the other team hits behind me, my partner is still standing on the baseline where they served it...
I tell all my partners to go for any ball they feel they can get a racquet on. I am not worried if they're stretching for a ball and shank it or anything else, but for me, it's about giving them confidence and breaking them out of the mentality that they need to play in their half or quarter of the court and nowhere else. I do ask them to hit an easy shot at the net with pace or angle or both, and away from the other players, and they try. When they are unable to do so, I do not bust their chops, but I just tell them to forget about it and next time go out wide or whatever. On my mixed team the former captain was a pretty chauvanistic *******. He'd tell women just to patty cake the ball in, and let the man take care of everything... he'd tell them just keep the point alive long enough for the man to put it away... the few women that reamain on the team are afraid they're going to catch sh*t for double faulting here and there or for going for a poach and not putting it away... since I stepped in as captain, my intention has been to encourage these women to play dynamically, be bold, be brave, go for that shot if you feel like you can make it, etc.
If it's a planned poach, that's one thing, but if it's something like an errant return of serve that is close to the middle and I leap over to poach it, I need my partner to be shading towards the open court behind me because the chances are that if I don't put the ball away, that's where it's coming next and I won't have time to reverse my travel and get back to cover that alley area I just left behind. I need a player that can dynamically respond to the point like this and not stand there until I yell out "switch" every time. Communication is great and important, but sometimes there's not time for it, and my partner needs to be able to respond dynamically and independently and move without the ball, just like I try to do.
I am talking about weak patty cake serves without placement. Returning such a serve, the opponent can put the ball extremely wide and away from the net player, and in order to go and get that ball the net player will have to be moving before the opponent hits it. I see this ALL the time when I am returning a weak serve, and when I see that guy cheating over, I simply go down the line behind them. The reason it has to be either or is because the net person can't be in 2 places at once, and if the serve is so weak that the opponent has time to do whatever they want with it, the net person becomes a soccer goalie on a penalty kick at that point... pick a place and go with it, and hope you guess correctly, because that's all you have - a guess.
And all I said was that in my estimate, regardless of how strong your serve is, you bear at least half of the responsibility for holding it. Certainly as the net player, I do everything I can to help my partner out too, that's a given.
I assumed everyone did this already. I certainly do. In fact, I will poach until the opponents beat me down the line twice (or sometimes more). If they beat me down the line once, OK, maybe it was a fluke, if they do it again and it was clearly not a mishit accident, then fine, I'll be more conservative (and ask my serving partner to change up where she's hitting her serve).
Thanks, but I assumed again that this was universal and everyone did it... is that not the case?
I wish I knew why... I don't know why. I tell them to go for any ball they feel like they can get a racquet on. I have my suspicions that a lot of women are jaded from playing with "ballhog" men (mostly because so many of them complain about ballhog men), and get in their heads that they play on THIS side of the court and THIS side only and so on and so forth... they never seem to mind if they're playing with a "ballhog" that puts everything away and wins matches for them 6-0, 6-0, but that's a rare situation in my estimateion because I've seen the players who are good enough to do that quickly moving to higher level, more challenging play...
I don't either. I think we're disagreeing on what we define as the percentage of responsibility the server bears for holding serve, and by that I don't mean 50% vs. 30%, I mean what objective things constitute the portion (whatever number it is) of responsibility each partner bears. I.e. what I'm calling "at least 50%" is probably something like 30% in your mind, and I've got no major beef with that. With my original statement about "50% to 90%" what I was really railing about was the people who patty cake the ball in, but can't place it AT ALL, and brag about how they never DF, but expect their partner to be Superman and go through heroics to help them hold their serve. In essence, these people have abandoned what I consider to be their "half" of their responsibility for holding their serve.
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I don't understand the argument you're making here... if you send a serve that gets popped up for an easy winner at the net, I consider that EASILY carrying your "half" of the responsibility for holding your serve... I'd call that 70% job done... as the server, when you do that, you've put a challenging serve in play and set your partner up for the "gimme" putaway. If you're able to alter your serve to force your opponents to hit to you - that requires intent and skill, and again, that's AT LEAST half of the responsibility, and obviously if the return comes to you and you dump it into the net, that's still your responsibility too, right? But if you can't trust your net partner, how are they keeping up their "half" of the deal?
In short, I think this is a semantics thing at this point...
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S&V-not_dead_yet
Talk Tennis Guru
No one [man or woman] has ever complained to me as the net man that I wasn't doing enough to help us win a service game, even those with patty cake serves [and sometimes I'm the one with the patty cake serve when I play up; I would never think of blaming my partner for that].
Did you signal and she failed to move? Is she serving from near the alley and can't get over? Is she not accustomed to someone poaching and her needing to switch?
I play with some partners who prefer standing fairly wide when serving which makes covering my alley almost impossible. Telling them to change service positions in the middle of a match is probably a bad idea.
I'm surprised the former captain had any women left with that attitude. So maybe things will change over time?
What your partner "needs to do" and what she's capable of doing or willing to do are two different things. Your strategy is fine on paper but if your partner can't keep up, you're better off with a less aggressive strategy, IMO.
Watch MXDs one or two levels below you. Read the numerous doubles threads on this forum. It is not universal.
The same could be said about partners in general, not just women: some people just don't "get" that doubles is not 2 people playing singles and staying on their respective sides. Good doubles is dynamic and possibly chaotic but chaos with a purpose [surely that's an oxymoron].
I once walked by a MXD match and the guy poached a middle ball and made an error. His partner said "that was my ball". He tried to explain that he made the right % play and that was good doubles strategy. I could tell she wasn't buying it. Like a piece of metal getting drawn to a magnet, she kept returning to "but it was my ball". I said nothing.
Cindysphinx
G.O.A.T.
It is interesting to me that players who believe their serves are strong for their level think the serve is super important, and if they are broken it is their partners fault.
I know 4.0 women with very weak serves who will destroy you with their flawless placement and overall craftiness. One of my most successful partnerships was with a 4.0 woman who put nothing on her serve but whose volleys were impenetrable.
I think it very difficult to dominate in women’s tennis with the serve. Many 3.5/4.0 women around here play mixed and so are used to returning the serves of 4.0 men. It has been years since I faced a female server who could consistently make me miss or pop up the return, and I don’t consider myself an exceptional returner.
So if the server isn’t holding, it could very well be that the net player isn’t helping enough. Once that point starts, both players need to win that point.
I know 4.0 women with very weak serves who will destroy you with their flawless placement and overall craftiness. One of my most successful partnerships was with a 4.0 woman who put nothing on her serve but whose volleys were impenetrable.
I think it very difficult to dominate in women’s tennis with the serve. Many 3.5/4.0 women around here play mixed and so are used to returning the serves of 4.0 men. It has been years since I faced a female server who could consistently make me miss or pop up the return, and I don’t consider myself an exceptional returner.
So if the server isn’t holding, it could very well be that the net player isn’t helping enough. Once that point starts, both players need to win that point.
OnTheLine
Hall of Fame
Oh please don't get me wrong .... it is not the partner's fault .... my point was just a refutation of a previous comment that its' entirely on the server to hold serve.
I also don't think that a perfect placement and crafty serve can possibly be considered weak ... it may not be fast, but it isn't weak for certain.
In my mind, the problem in ladies' doubles returning is that when they face a strong serve they do not block it back the way they would in mixed. They assume a woman can't hit a great serve so they try to take a full cut at it and it either pops up for a sitter, hits the back fence or into the net. Over and Over again.
I think too few women put enough practice or emphasis on their serve.
Dartagnan64
G.O.A.T.
And it doesn't take much. If you can reliably go at the opponents backhand with a low bouncing flat serve, that will work for you all the way to 4.5. No pronation or leg drive really needed. Don't even need a conti grip.
Cindysphinx
G.O.A.T.
See, I don't think the issue is that women don't put enough practice or emphasis on the serve.
The serve is like any other shot, right? You have to decide how much improvement you will get in that shot for the time and money invested.
In doubles, you get to serve only 25% of the games, and during those service points you only get to serve once. Meanwhile, you must return in twice as many games as you will serve. And once a point starts, you will hit some number of volleys, half-volleys, and groundstrokes.
All this to say . . . I would say that if a female 3.5/4.0 player has a consistent serve that she can place, time and money spent making incremental improvements on the serve will often not be the highest and best use of that time and money. Better, I argue, would be to shore up whatever else in the player's game that is a problem.
I say that mostly based on my experience with certain teammates and friends. Oh, the time and effort spent on the serve for players who already had a pretty good serve! What a waste -- an extra x mphs on the serve, while the rest of their game is stagnant. Like, the player was completely unable to hit a volley outside of the service box. Or the player was completely unable to slice. Or had no touch shots. Yet there she is, working on her serve, again.
Don't get me wrong. I like my serve, and it suits my game. I spent time and money learning to serve the way I serve, and I do practice when I can. I could spend the limited amount of time and money I have to develop it. But I think I would win more points to improve the placement of my volleys and the weight/consistency on my groundstrokes.
The serve is like any other shot, right? You have to decide how much improvement you will get in that shot for the time and money invested.
In doubles, you get to serve only 25% of the games, and during those service points you only get to serve once. Meanwhile, you must return in twice as many games as you will serve. And once a point starts, you will hit some number of volleys, half-volleys, and groundstrokes.
All this to say . . . I would say that if a female 3.5/4.0 player has a consistent serve that she can place, time and money spent making incremental improvements on the serve will often not be the highest and best use of that time and money. Better, I argue, would be to shore up whatever else in the player's game that is a problem.
I say that mostly based on my experience with certain teammates and friends. Oh, the time and effort spent on the serve for players who already had a pretty good serve! What a waste -- an extra x mphs on the serve, while the rest of their game is stagnant. Like, the player was completely unable to hit a volley outside of the service box. Or the player was completely unable to slice. Or had no touch shots. Yet there she is, working on her serve, again.
Don't get me wrong. I like my serve, and it suits my game. I spent time and money learning to serve the way I serve, and I do practice when I can. I could spend the limited amount of time and money I have to develop it. But I think I would win more points to improve the placement of my volleys and the weight/consistency on my groundstrokes.
S&V-not_dead_yet
Talk Tennis Guru
That's an interesting take, basing the RoI on the player and where they are in the skill continuum rather than just a blanket diktat.
Cindysphinx
G.O.A.T.
You know, I was thinking about this bit. What is the problem with returning in ladies 3.5/4.0 doubles?
Sure, many don't know how to block back a strong serve. True.
But I don't think that is the biggest issue. The biggest issue is that a lot of returners treat every serve the same way, and they treat every set of opponents the same way.
What I mean is that it is important to be capable of returning the serve from behind the baseline, if the serve requires that. And it is also important to be capable of returning the serve from just behind the service line, if the serve requires that. And everything in between.
At my level, there are a lot of serve return errors made simply because the returner doesn't know where to be. Say you have a weak server and an active net player. The last place you want to be is standing on the baseline. That situation calls for you to stand in closer, either slicing or hitting/blocking on the rise. How about if the server follows the serve in? That's another time you should be returning from closer to the service line rather than way back. What if the server has a lot of spin on the serve? Gotta return from closer in to cut off the angles. How many times have I seen a partner standing a foot behind the baseline to receive a cupcake serve, then have an emergency on her hands trying to reach the serve -- only to position the same way for the next serve?
Even more valuable than being able to slice or block a return is being able to return in a few different ways. It makes sense to me, you know? All serves are not alike, so why do so many of us only know how to return one way?
S&V-not_dead_yet
Talk Tennis Guru
How's this for simplifying things beyond all recognition: they were taught to serve by standing in a certain position. It may vary laterally [but usually not] but not longitudinally. So they do the same with the return.
S&V-not_dead_yet
Talk Tennis Guru
OnTheLine
Hall of Fame
Yes yes yes ... cannot agree more.
And you have the ones that always are at the baseline and then you have those that are always a couple of feet off the service line. The latter I enjoy exploiting and no matter how many hard fast body serves I send to them, they never move ....
But my thought was that the same lady who knows how to block back a man's serve in doubles doesn't do it in ladies' doubles ... even after they have missed every return by taking a full cut.
I don't understand why you seem to think that I'm implying it isn't a team effort. I guess your perspective is that I'm saying the non-serving partner isn't responsible to help hold the serve... that's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm saying that the people who think their "responsibility" to hold their own serve (i.e. the service games that they themselves are serving) ends when they put any old ball in play are wrong. In my experience, many of the women at this 3.5ish level think that their only responsibility for the serve itself is to just get something in play and not DF... they don't bother to work on trying to hit to a spot, or to the backhand or anything, and think that if they just lob in some fluffy dinky serve, as long as it goes in is good enough. When these people are serving, as the non-serving partner, you are just like a soccer goalie on a penalty kick.
You don't have to have a super duper serve at the 3.5ish level to ensure that your opponents can't do whatever the heck they want with the return - it just needs to have little bit of pace and you need to be able to place it reasonably - i.e. you don't have to be able to knock over cans - but generally place it to the backhand, or up the T, or whatever...
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Nostradamus
Bionic Poster
Agree, but disagree. It isn't helping out. It is simply doing you job at the net. At the net, you are supposed to cut off everything return in the middle unless it is hit with 70 MPH with 2000 RPM and just skimming over the net in the middle. You have to cut off anything else in the middle. if you just stand there at net and defend your side only then that net man isn't doing the job. But so many of the social and club level USTA guys and girls do this and just stand there. mostly afraid that they might get passed on their side and get blamed for it by STUPID partners glaring eye at you if you get passed in your alley.
S&V-not_dead_yet
Talk Tennis Guru
I agree with you. If I hit a weak serve and they pummel my net partner, I'm not going to blame my partner; I'm going to blame myself.
I was addressing the opposite extreme when the net man stands in the alley, never poaches, and never risks anything and then blames the serving partner for failing to hold serve. This is the mentality I observe more often.
And part of our disagreement probably stems from the level we're playing at: I'm a 4.5 male playing 9.0 MXDs. None of the women have big 2nd serves but they definitely don't have the mindset that you're outlining with your partners. So I never feel that kind of pressure.
S&V-not_dead_yet
Talk Tennis Guru
Except "doing your job at the net" is interpreted [and implemented] differently by different players. As an aggressive net player, I might have a much higher bar for fulfilling my role. A passive net player will be happy with a lot less [although the partner might not be].
Nostradamus
Bionic Poster
That Passive player is 3.5 or below and should never play 4.0 and above. EVER. All advanced players are Aggressive net player except Singles players.
Oh yeah, you're a much better player than I am and playing at a much higher level than I am (obviously). Things in the 3.5/7.0 mixed world seem to be quite different from what you're describing (based on my own experience, anyway).
