Doubles Only Tennis Podcast

Olympic Doubles Lessons: The Lob Return, Experiment Early, & Attack Strengths

• Will Boucek • Episode 189

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0:00 | 18:02

The Olympics are underway, and Team USA is off to a great start in doubles. In this episode, I share 3 lessons I've learned from scouting and analyzing data & video for Team USA over the past week.

  • Who should be using the lob return?
  • Why you need to be experimenting earlier and more often than you think.
  • How to handle a BIG forehand.

No matter which country you support, watch the doubles from Paris all week long. In the US, you can watch on Peacock.

Enjoy the Olympics!
#WatchMoreDOUBLES

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Strategic Lessons for Tennis Players

Speaker 1

Hey everyone, welcome to today's episode. This is gonna be a pretty short one. I am pretty swamped this week with the Olympics. If you didn't hear, a couple weeks ago on the podcast, I announced that I would be doing strategy and scouting analysis for Team USA at the Olympics. So I'm helping out the doubles teams a little bit, providing some scouting reports, helping with some video and data analysis and different things like that, and today I'm going to actually share three lessons with you that I've learned. Slash kind of reminded myself of the last several days during some of my scouting, and this applies not only at the pro level, but I'm going to try to articulate it for you at the club level as well. So if you haven't been watching, I'm recording this.

Speaker 1

On July 30th, tuesday. If you haven't been watching the Olympics, team USA is 6-0 at this point and Rajiv Ram and Austin Krychek have won two matches. Everybody else has won one match and in the next round, rajiv and Austin will be playing Nadal and Alcaraz. So that will be a really fun one, regardless of the outcome. But if you haven't been watching, you should definitely be watching doubles at the Olympics. It's really exciting. The crowds have been really insane, especially certain countries. So if you're in the US, you can watch it on Peacock's premium service. So it's about, I think, $7.99 and you can sign up for a monthly subscription and then just cancel next month. So you're paying eight bucks to get access to all the doubles matches and then a lot more premium Olympic content. So it's definitely worth the small price. If you're not in the US, I think BBC has it in the UK I'm not sure about Europe and Australia and Asia and other countries but hopefully you can find it and watch some of the doubles, because it's been really, really exciting, like I said.

Speaker 1

One other announcement before I get to the lessons for today the doubles camp in New York is filling up, so we did decide to add a third court and open it up to 3-0 players, because a lot of you requested that. So we only have five spots left. There's going to be 18 players. There's going to be three coaches, so six players per court, one coach per court. It's going to be a lot of hands-on strategy that's really tailored to your game. So I'm going to be studying your game individually. I'm going to spend time with all 18 players and try to help you determine the best tactics, the best strategy with the game that you have. Now We'll be playing a lot of points as well, but I want to really focus on getting you the knowledge you need to win more matches. If you're going to be in New York during the US Open, check out the doubles camp. It is a three-day camp, two and a half hours per day. You can go to thetennistribecom slash camp to learn more or email me if you have any questions. I know some of you have been emailing me back and forth and are very interested. So it may fill up fast and, like I said, we've got five spots left.

Speaker 1

So let's dive into some of the lessons I've learned recently doing some of the scouting for the Olympics and some of the strategy analysis. So this first one is one that I've stressed a lot the last couple of years. It's something I've added to my game the last four or five years and, like I said, I've talked about it before, but something I found just reiterates this even more, and it's the importance of having a lob return. So I was doing some analysis of a bunch of different players who were playing in the Olympics and two times two different times I've looked at a player's return numbers and they had a higher win percentage returning against first serve when they hit a lob than when they drove the ball. So basically, for every hundred lob returns against a first serve they would win, say, 35 points. But for every 100 returns when they didn't lob, when they would drive the return, they would only win 30 of the points. So they should literally be lobbing the return more than they should be driving it against first serve.

Speaker 1

And this is the highest level of the game. Where the serves are bigger, the overheads are much better. The serves are bigger, the overheads are much better. So it's a lot more difficult to lob than it is at our level, at the club level. So if it works at their level, it definitely works at our level. And you hear so many people say I hate playing against teams who lob. Well, that's because most of us don't have great overheads and most of us aren't that quick to get back from the net to hit the overhead. So if you don't have a lob return this is just another reminder Even at the very, very highest level, these people are competing for Olympic medals. Even at that level, against first serves, the lob return is often the right play. So at our level.

Speaker 1

If you don't have the lob return, go out there, practice it. Use it on 80% of your returns. In your next practice match, challenge yourself to add the lob return to your game. It is so, so effective because you're going to make a higher percentage of returns and most players you face are not going to have great overheads. You might leave a few short and give up some overheads. You're going to few short and give up some overheads. You're going to look stupid for a minute, but for the most part in the long run, a lot of times against certain teams, you're going to win a higher percentage of points. So you really want to have that tool in your arsenal to go to when you need it. So add the lob or return to your game.

Speaker 1

The next lesson here is really about experimentation. A lot of these teams at the Olympics especially when you get two singles players together they really do the same thing every time. They play regular formation. They rarely move at the net. They try to win the point from the baseline and it works against some teams because they're so good from the baseline. But they would still be better off if they were to run some different formations and experiment and try to create some movement at the net just to find certain weaknesses. In this case, I feel like a lot of them are so focused on themselves and how well they play that they're not kind of probing the other side of the net for weaknesses, and it's something that I actually had to reiterate.

Speaker 1

This weekend I went to a ladies combo tournament, so this was a 4-5-5-0 combo, so this is a pretty high level, obviously not Olympic level, but pretty high for club level tennis or club level tennis, and one of the teams I was watching lost a match 6-2, 6-4, I believe and it was a close 6-2, 6-4. There was a lot of deuce games. They didn't win the majority of them, obviously, and I went and talked to them after the match and they ran regular formation the whole match. They never tried I or Australian. They really just didn't mix it up a lot. One of the reasons for that is they lost the first set pretty quick 6-2, and then they were up 4-1 in the second set and they were like, okay, we've got this, we've figured it out, we're good now. But then they lost five games in a row and after talking to them after the match, I said why didn't y'all ever try any different formations, especially that deuce court returner.

Speaker 1

She had such a big cross court return. A lot of times it would land pretty deep in the court. Why didn't you try to make her go down the line? She attempted two down the line during the match that I saw and missed both of them. And they said you know, we talked about it and we just never did it. And I just I didn't understand. I was like why didn't you try it? Like what you were doing wasn't working. But when you're in the match a lot of the time you feel like it is working because the margins are just so small in doubles and you feel like, oh well, that worked. I just happened to miss that forehand, but I should be making those. But the reality is the margins are so small that it's really tough to kind of notice if something's not working when you're in the middle of a match.

Speaker 1

So what you have to do is experiment as much as you can early in the match to look for those weaknesses on the other side of the net. Make them hit a forehand return side of the net. Make them hit a forehand, return down the line early. Make them hit a backhand down the line, return down the line early, make them hit two or three of each and see what their weakness is, and that will mean that by the time the second set comes around, you're going to have a really good strategy to beat that team. And in this case I think the team that lost two and four could have won the match if they had run a little bit of eye formation in the deuce court against that deuce court returner who was returning so well through the deuce court, hitting the ball hard, hitting the ball deep and really pushing the server back. So just do not be afraid to experiment, especially early in the match, early in games. Use a bunch of different formations, call poaches, use movement and see what happens and then you can assess. You know this worked, this didn't. If you lose one point early, it's okay, but you just learn from it and keep trying things and keep improving. So just a reminder there to you know again experiment, experiment, experiment, keep trying new things.

Speaker 1

Last thing that I wanted to mention is about returning. So this is something I think I've only mentioned once or twice on the podcast. It's probably been a while. I know we have a lot of new listeners since the last time I mentioned this, but I was doing a scouting report for a different or for the US recently, a couple of days ago, and it was against a different country who had a particular player who had this really big forehand return. So I was watching the video of the match, which I always do, and I'm looking for tendencies. I'm looking for, you know, things to avoid strengths, obviously, and this forehand return was really really big. Like I had, you know, I was watching the matches and every time they would land a forehand return, the surf team would immediately be on defense, the matches and every time they would land a forehand return, the serve team would immediately be on defense. So my gut was and I actually wrote down in my notes, you know avoid their forehand best to serve mostly to the backhand.

Speaker 1

But then I always go to the data as well and look at the numbers and what I found, because your eyes will really lie to you. That's why you have to use the video and the numbers and the data when you're doing this sort of thing, and I know for a lot of you listening at the club level, you're not going to have the data. You can get it with a service that I use called Tennessee Analytics. They do a really good job. If you're able to film your match, you can get data on it and if you're interested in that, reach out to me and I'll share more information with you.

Speaker 1

But the forehand return when I looked at the data, it had a slightly higher win percentage than the backhand return. So I don't remember if this was deuce or add, but let's say it was the deuce court. So the wide serve maybe had a 70% win percentage for the serve team. So this person won 30% of the points with the wide serve. The T serve was at like 27% or something like that. So their forehand return yielded more one points. But when I looked at the data, I was surprised to see that the gap was that narrow and the forehand return also yielded a lot more errors.

Serve Variety and Location Strategy

Speaker 1

So how do we handle something like that? And it's typically with a forehand that you'll see this A lot of times. It's on the men's side. Sometimes you'll see it on the women's side as well, but it's a forehand that you do not want to face, but it misses more often than the backhand. So the way I like to handle this in a lot of cases is to actually attack that forehand early on in the match and especially early on in games. So if they are a deuce court returner, you might go to the forehand at love all or up 30 love in a game, or up 40-15 to try to just get a free point or two. And then when you get into a pressure moment on a big point, maybe you're down 15-40,. You've been going to the forehand a decent bit and that backhand return is not going to be in a great rhythm because you've been mixing it up so much. So at that point you can go to the backhand return because it's not going to hurt you as badly if it does land in and it won't be in as much of a rhythm, like I said, because you've been mixing it up. So keep that in mind.

Speaker 1

With forehands, really two takeaways here. One, just because they hit their forehand really hard doesn't mean it's something to avoid. A lot of players I face, especially at the club level, have a big forehand and people try to avoid it. But when you look at it and do the math on it, they actually miss so many forehands that it's worth letting them walk away after the match with 20 forehand winners because they're going to have 40 forehand errors and if you're winning two out of three points, you're going to win the match. So just because it's a big forehand doesn't mean it's something to avoid. That's the first takeaway.

Speaker 1

And the second lesson from this is to really mix up and use a lot of variety with your serve location. And this can apply to returns, it can apply to all sorts of shots, but the serve is the one that we have the most control over. So use a lot of variety and mix up your serve locations based on those strengths and weaknesses. So if the forehand is slightly stronger, go there on a 40-15 point or on a 30 love point so that that backhand doesn't get into as much of a rhythm. If you go to that backhand every single time just because it's a little bit weaker, then you might serve them into a rhythm and they're going to be really comfortable hitting that backhand. So then when you're on a big point, they're going to be really comfortable hitting that backhand. So then when you're on a big point, they're going to be more comfortable hitting that backhand because you've served it into a rhythm. Or you can go to their forehand, which you know if they land that forehand you're going to be in a lot of trouble. So there's a lot of complexity to this, but hopefully the way I described that kind of makes sense for you. I try to kind of articulate some of these pro level lessons that I find into tangible, actionable stuff that you can do at the club level and stuff that I've done as well. So those are the three lessons for this week.

Speaker 1

Again, watch the Olympics. The doubles has been so much fun to watch. The crowds are really crazy, especially certain countries Regivre in Austin Krycek against Brazil today. The Brazilian heavy crowd was really really loud and it made for a pretty exciting match. There's no announcers on a lot of these doubles matches, so you're really hearing the crowd and it feels almost like you're there. So be sure to watch the doubles and if you all are interested in the New York doubles camp, reach out to me, let me know. No-transcript.