Doubles Only Tennis Podcast

Pete Freeman Interview: 8 Doubles Tips from Tennis Con

• Will Boucek • Episode 202

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Peter Freeman hosts Tennis Con 8 starting next week. It's a free event where some of the best online tennis coaches present on different topics to help you improve your game.

I asked Pete to share the best doubles lessons he's learned over the years from Tennis Con. We discuss eight lessons.

  1. Gigi Fernandez's 123 Poaching Formula
  2. Jorge Capestany's Doubles Dance
  3. Ian Westermann's Angels in the Outfield
  4. Roy Emerson's Play for your Partner (Bonus Never miss a return)
  5. Will Boucek's It's not you, it's me approach
  6. Gigi's Stagger formation
  7. Will Hamilton's Racket Below Wrist Poach Tell
  8. Gigi's Singles Approach Strategy for Doubles

Pete and I always have great strategy discussions so I know you'll enjoy this one.

Sign up for Tennis Con 8 here.

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TennisCon 8

Speaker 1

You're about to hear my interview with coach Peter Freeman. Peter has the highest level of USPTA certification that you can get. He has coached Division I college players, produced state and national champions and been awarded the USTA Georgia Pro of the Year, but more recently, of the year. But more recently Peter has become really well known for his online presence. So I had Peter on to talk about his online tennis conference that he hosts every year, called TennisCon, and this is the eighth year of TennisCon. So in honor of that, I asked Peter to pick some of his favorite doubles lessons and doubles presentations from TennisCon over the years and go over those with me on the podcast. So for the first several minutes you're going to hear us talk about TennisCon 8, how to sign up, which you can do in the show notes and what to expect. We really do sell it a little bit, but there's a reason for that. If you know me and if you've listened to the podcast for a while, I do not come on here and sell things that I do not believe in, and I believe that TennisCon 8 is honestly one of the best values you can get in tennis as a club level player. So we talk a little bit about that, and then we go over the top eight lessons that Peter has learned from Tennis Con, again doing this for coming up on the eighth year. So you're going to hear lessons from Gigi Fernandez, jorge Capostani, who have both been on the podcast before, doubles legends like Roy Emerson, ian Westerman, who's also been on the podcast before, and a few others. Some of these lessons are about positioning, some of these are about how to poach, there's a few about shot selection and different tactics, and they're all things that you can apply to your own doubles game. So this is going to be a really good strategic episode and, of course, we do want you to sign up for TennisCon 8 as well. So, without further delay, enjoy this conversation and I hope you learn a lot from Peter Freeman.

Speaker 1

Hey, everybody, welcome to the show. Today we have Pete Freeman on Pete welcome. Thank you, man. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited for this conversation too. We chatted last week on your YouTube channel, crunch Time Coaching, which we'll link to the show notes so people can check that out, and we've chatted a few times this year actually, and our audiences have both enjoyed a lot of those conversations. So it's good to get you introduced a little bit more to my audience for people who aren't familiar with you, but we've got one of the biggest events coming up of the year for club level doubles players and it's one of my favorite events that I've presented at a few times now, and it's TennisCon 8. So I want to start out. For people listening, we're about to share eight different doubles lessons from the previous years of TennisCon. But before we get to those doubles lessons, pete, if you can share with us what to expect this year from tennis con eight yeah.

Speaker 2

So tennis con eight and that's why we're going to go through eight tips. I'm really excited that we're in our eighth year and and, uh, I get more excited about every year because it's about helping totally obsessed tennis players. I find that the people who really get into it and get excited they're not your normal tennis player. They really love, they eat, breathe, sleep tennis and so really fortunate to be able to work with people like yourself and Gigi Fernandez and Ryan Reedy from Two Minute Tennis and you can pretty much just think of anybody who's got a pretty good following online, who gives a great value, and they're part of TennisCon. So it's these passionate tennis coaches connecting with passionate players, trying to help them in all areas of tennis where they have a technical problem, a problem with strategy, if they need to get fitter on or off the court, it's all there in TennisCon and that's the beauty of it off the court. It's all there in.

Speaker 1

TennisCon, and that's the beauty of it. Yeah, and it's like for people listening, it's just really a no-brainer to sign up for. So how it works, and we'll include a link in the show notes. You enter your email, it's totally free to sign up and you get access to it's like 40 plus coaches, is that right, pete?

Speaker 1

That's correct it's like 40 plus coaches, is that right, pete? That's correct. So 40 plus coaches. The lessons are released over the course of a week. You get access for 48 hours, is that right? That's true? Yep, okay, so you get free access for 48 hours and then, if you want lifetime access, you can pay a small fee for that. I think in the past, before the times of the internet fee for that. I think in the past, before the times of the internet. I think I mentioned this last time when we chatted. This would have costed thousands of dollars to get access to this many coaches, and it's so cool that you're able to do an event like this. So, anyways, we're going to link to that in the show notes and then I think what we were talking about beforehand you've got something you wanted to talk about with the upgrades as well.

Speaker 2

That's right. So if people want to get a lifetime access pass to the program, to where they can watch all 40 plus masterclasses, they can do that, and then I always, on the next page, offer some extra goodies for a steep discount. This year I'm doing the same thing. I think my offers are even better than ever.

Doubles Strategies From TennisCon 8

Speaker 2

And because we've been so devastated with the hurricanes Florida, north Carolina, georgia I mean just outright devastation. And even one of our legends of TennisCon, gigi Fernandez, has won 17 Grand Slam titles. She's probably going to lose her home from these hurricanes. If not, it's going to be basically building her house from scratch. So, either way, she's been devastated and she says it's felt like a death. And one of her children, her son, said hey, you know, everybody's suffering in our community. I found this it's called Metropolitan Ministries which they help people with food, shelter, clothing, basically helping people get back on their feet and get back to some kind of normal life. So I decided that this year, 100% of the proceeds from our basic bonus that, if you want to go for that, you can be giving and donating to this very, very important cause at the moment, and even one of the bonuses will include a day if you can make it, to come out and train with me and that's basically. But I'm not making anything from that. It's 100% going to this charitable organization.

Speaker 1

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, and we're listening. This won't be released till the 23rd, but we're recording this on October 10th, so the hurricane just hit literally last night. Nielsen did. I know the other one hit last week, so that's an awesome way to contribute and get a lot for your tennis game.

Speaker 2

So yeah, and just one last thing on that. I mean, the news moves so fast and so you know, maybe in a couple of weeks they're still not talking about this story. But when you go through what these people are going through, this is going to take them, you know, certainly months, some people years, some people will never recover from this and get back to what they once had. So, especially because Florida is one of those states where it's very hard to get insured for your home. So you know, just because it might be out of the news cycle by the time you're watching this video, I mean people are still suffering really hard out there.

Speaker 1

Yeah, 100%, all right. So let's get into these eight tips from TennisCon. So when we decided to do this episode, I said can you go back through your doubles presentations and pick out your three to five favorite doubles lessons or presentations from all seven or now this year, eight tennis cons over the years? And you said I don't want to do just three to five, I want to do eight of them. So let's start with number one, gigi's one, two, three poaching formula.

Speaker 2

What is that? Thank you for that. Yeah, I mean, there's just so many great lessons that it was hard to pretty much impossible narrow to three. Just so many great lessons that it was hard to pretty much impossible to narrow it to three. So I really love this from Gigi where she says that she teaches her students.

Speaker 2

When we think about a poach, we typically think about a planned poach. First one, the server says, okay, you're going to serve, I'm going to go, that's a planned poach. That's the way we traditionally think about it. Gigi says basically you can plan a poach out within the first three shots and that kind of just makes you less nervous about poaching. You can go on ball number one, ball number two, ball number three.

Speaker 2

So you basically tell your partner that and then when you go, your partner's automatically going to back you up. So even if you leave at the wrong time, which a lot of people are fearful of like what if I leave at the wrong time, which a lot of people are fearful of? Like what if I leave at the wrong time? Then we get burned down the line. We know what ball you're going to poach on. So then you automatically back up your partner on the other side and you can do this on the return or the serving side, and I thought that that's a really unique thing and it's like such a no-brainer, it's like why haven't we thought of this before? I've never heard of this before.

Speaker 2

Gigi talked about this 1-2-3 poaching formula and, by the way, gigi's won 17 Grand Slam titles, but it's not like she is going okay, this is what worked on the pro tour, so I want you guys to try this. She started to work at a club, I believe, in Connecticut I think I have the state right and she just saw the way that things were being coached and what was working, what wasn't working at club level tennis. So her method is about helping recreational players and the stuff that she puts into her method works at the recreational level, not necessarily at the pro level.

Speaker 1

Yeah, she's been on my podcast before. It's been a while. I should probably have her on again, but it's still to date. We just hit our 200th episode a few weeks ago and to date it's still one of the most popular episodes. I think it's like top three or top five or something like that. Her tips for recreational club players are amazing. So I've seen that before at the pro level a little bit, where it'll be the server's partner or returner's partner. Actually, as Caroline Dole had this a few years ago, I saw her signal when she was the returner's partner. She signaled two behind her back and I asked her after the match what does the two mean? And she said, oh, I'm going after the second ball, so I'm not poaching on the return, I'm poaching after the return plus one. So this is a really, really good concept that I think can work at all levels. So number two is Jorge's doubles dance. What is that?

Speaker 2

Yeah. So it's one of the hardest things I think for recreational players to get comfortable with as far as looking for when you're either on the serving side of the ball or on the returning side and you're the person up, not the person back, and there's a cross court rally. It's hard to get into that rhythm of knowing when to go up and kind of challenge the person hitting the ball and when to go back to make sure that if your partner, who's now the baseliner, hits at the net person where the net person makes a great play or your partner maybe didn't hit the greatest shot, at least you have a chance to defend it. So it's super important because if you just stand there like a chess piece and you're not making these moves, you're missing opportunities to poach and you're also missing opportunities to defend. So we've all heard this before. I think a lot, but I really liked the way that Jorge demonstrates it in tennis con eight, where he went out and he filmed on the court and the way he had his players learn this was to when the baseliner hits the other baseliner, the baseliner on that side catches the ball to make sure that, okay, you've moved up in front of the ball and then when they hit it across the other way, then the other person is supposed to move back and are up, and then you know you move back. So it gives you that timing to where you can understand, like, okay, now I understand this.

Speaker 2

This is the doubles dance and it's easy to understand concepts to where you're like okay, I get, I'm supposed to do that, but it's hard to then actually do it, especially in a match. So I love this, because lots of tips that you hear like, okay, I got to do that. But then you're in a match, things are moving too fast. You never get it to where, slowing it down, having the ball caught and hit back and forth. And now we got it. Okay, now let's do a rally slow. Okay, now let's do a rally slow. Okay, now we have it. Now let's play some points. So it's just a great progression, he shows.

Speaker 1

Yeah, so this is coming up for TennisCon 8.

Speaker 2

This is coming up for TennisCon 8, yeah.

Speaker 1

I'm definitely going to watch that because this is a concept that I've actually struggled to teach myself, like we ran a doubles camp in New York several weeks ago and I taught it two different ways. You know, I taught it where the player kind of tracks the ball, so when the ball's back at the baseline and your partner's hitting, you're back in the service box. But when the ball's on the other baseline and your opponent's hitting, you're forward in the service box and like that works for some people. But then with other players I told them OK, look at the other net player and if they're moving back then you're forward. If they're moving forward, then you're back. But I haven't found like a clean solution for this and it sounds like Jorge might have at least something towards that.

Speaker 2

This is a really clean solution and it's one of the toughest things to teach. It's a concept that, again, is easy to understand, but to then get players to do it is really hard. And Jorge admits and this guy's a master professional, he's like I've tried to teach this for years and I finally came up with this drill and this has worked the best.

Speaker 1

Okay, yeah, I'm definitely watching this one. That's awesome. Okay, number three is Ian Westerman's's angels in the outfield. What is that?

Speaker 2

ian gave a great presentation. Uh, again, it's from this year, so not everything is from previous tennis cons I have on the list. And what I loved was he didn't call it angels in the outfield, but I'm calling angels in the outfield to where he showed some really strong four or five, five, oh, players that play on. He's got a YouTube channel also called real tennis I don't know You've checked that out and one of the players that a lot of people might recognize his name is Scott. He's in his fifties. Guys really, really good and he's playing with other players at his level.

Speaker 2

And so they showed when lobs would go over someone's head and at recreational tennis, especially 4-0 and below, we're always worried more like was that my ball or your ball? What side should I be on and where should I go? Where Ian said look, they're not really doing that at this level. They're always naturally both moving towards the ball, so the lobs going up, maybe one player is more responsible than the other player and we're not going to really get into that now. But he basically said look, at the advanced level, they're both gravitating towards the ball. And when I did this interview with him, I happened to go to a Braves game and I noticed that when there was a pop fly, even if it went to the left fielder, usually the center fielder was pretty close most of the time to back them up in case they didn't catch it, if there was any kind of confusion, kind of confusion. So that was kind of.

Speaker 2

His point is like look, don't always be so concerned with is it on your side, their side, my ball? He's like, look at how the players are going. They're clearly sometimes crossing way over the middle line where sometimes we just divide the court in two sections. Like this is my side, that's your side. You must have messed up because the ball passed you on your side. And he's basically saying don't look to play the blame game. Like this is my side, that's your side. You must have messed up because the ball passed you on your side.

Speaker 2

And he's basically saying don't look to play the blame game. Like well, that wasn't my fault because it was on their side. It's like you want to be instinctive, you want to flow to the ball. Of course there are certain balls that should be one person's ball over the next, but the more you're just gravitating towards the ball and then knowing where to go after you know, let's say, your partner hits it, then you got to. Then that would be another thing. After they backed up their partner, their partner got it, then they would know exactly where to run to basically cover the next shot. So I thought it was really, really awesome because he showed it. He showed he doesn't talk and he showed it in our interview and I thought it was great.

Speaker 1

He showed he doesn't talk, and he showed it in our interview and I thought it was great. That's cool. Yeah, I was working on that, basically that exact lesson, the other day with a college level team. So this is not even 4-0 or lower. These are like 5-5, 6-0 players, um, and yeah, I think that even at that level, um, what you talked about they gravitate towards the ball, I think better than maybe the lower level players do, but they were still having trouble as to where to go after the shot is hit.

Speaker 1

So in this case, the ball dropped, the player at the net couldn't get to the overhead, so they let it bounce. Then the baseline player had a forehand, but then they weren't sure which side to be on afterwards. So there's a lot at play there and I think that finding those instincts and working with your partner on it is super, super important. And a lot of that communication comes before you even step onto the court. You know to figure out your ideal situations and court positions. So, number four here, roy Emerson play for your partner and then it looks like you've got a little bonus here as well.

Speaker 1

Yeah, so this is one of my favorites.

Speaker 2

He's like you play doubles for your partner. I got to interview Roy. He was part of some of our first tennis cons. I also made a course called Legends Guide to Tennis Mastery. I also got to play the Tennis Fantasy Camp. So I mean I've heard him say this. A bunch Tennis Fantasy Camp. If you don't know about it, they do in October. It's all men like 100 plus men and you play for a legend. So, like the year I played for Roy on his team, one of my other coaches was Rod Laver. So I mean, just imagine that and what he meant by that.

Playing for Your Partner in Doubles

Speaker 2

And as I really think back at my junior and especially college career, when you more play doubles in college, I can say I probably didn't fully understand this, because a lot of people start out playing tennis in singles. So you're always thinking of yourself and what's a good shot and what feels good right now, what shot if I hit would feel good? Where's the highlight? One of the most exciting things to do in doubles is to pass someone up the alley. It's like a slam dunk in basketball and not to say you should never do it, but we kind of sometimes maybe do it too much or we do it at the wrong time. And so Roy basically said you don't play doubles for yourself and your own highlights. You're always trying to think is this shot going to set up my partner for success, is it going to give them a poach, is it going to keep them safe at the baseline?

Speaker 2

And even going back to Gigi, one of the most interesting things she ever told in interviews and she's done this more than once is she said I didn't particularly enjoy playing with Martina Navratilova, even though she won a Grand Slam with her. And the point she made was it was an honor to play with her, I liked her, we're friends. But number one, if we lost, it's kind of my fault because she's Martina Navratilova and I was more new on the tour. So it's like, oh, it must have been Gigi Fernandez's fault. And plus, she said Martina was so talented that she would choose shots often that she wasn't expecting as her doubles partner. So she felt that she was off balance and sometimes left out to dry, because she was like I'm surprised you hit that shot, because if you hit it on this other side or maybe at the person's feet or whatever Gigi thought would have been the right doubles play, I would have felt more comfortable and in place and ready to make a play.

Speaker 2

So that's what that means playing for your partner and I think it's definitely something you have to really focus on because, let's face it, when we wake up in the morning, we're playing a match. I don't know about you Will, but if I'm going to play a match, I'm excited, I'm pumped up and I'm thinking about me. I want to play well, I want to walk off the. If people are going to be there watching, I want people to come up and say man, pete, you played great today. I'm sorry, that's just the way I look at things, but it's not necessarily the best doubles trait to always be looking for the highlights and to get all the aces and everything. Lots of times. There's a better shot you can play that's less glamorous, that helps your partner more, and the more you do that as a doubles player, you're going to win more matches and another thing that.

Speaker 2

Roy said. Now, another thing that Roy said he goes you should never miss a return. His mindset was like don't miss a return in doubles. Of course he's got a big sense of humor, so he's joking a little bit, but he's kind of serious about it as well. He's like look in doubles, get the ball back, make them play balls If you want to break serves.

Speaker 2

And then the final tip is the Aussies. If you ever went to a tennis fantasy camp, if you're out there and you have to be listening, you're like I actually went to that Because a lot of people who are out there over 40, they've gone to this over the years. And the Aussies have a great sense of humor and they often kind of make fun of each other, but they know that it's lighthearted and in tennis we know how nervous we can get. And one thing Roy would say to his partner but joking, just trying to break up the tension He'd be like something like if you decide you want to make a return, I won't be angry Now to some people. That would hurt their feelings and that would send them into a tailspin. But Aussie to Aussie, they would laugh at each other like, all right, I get you, and that would loosen them up Like all right, I get you.

Speaker 1

And that would loosen them up. Yeah, I like that a lot. The play for your partner phrase is interesting and I think there's specific questions that well, I guess. To take it back to what you said earlier, so when I wake up and do have a match that day I think you're right that day I think you're right Like I go into the match thinking, okay, I want to walk away from this match, knowing, like, feeling good about how I played and knowing I did everything I could to win.

Speaker 1

The thing that drives me the most crazy is when I go out and play a match and I make strategic errors. I don't mind double faulting, I don't like it, but I don't mind it, it's just an execution error. But if I, you know, don't recognize during the match that we should have been playing two back on the return and I realize it after, or I hit that down the line, shot when I shouldn't be, I'm going for too much. That drives me crazy. So I think this is one of those questions that maybe I start asking myself after each point or each game, you know, periodically was I playing for my partner there, you know, and I think that can help you improve your shot selection and your court positioning and all this strategy over time. So I like that a lot. So the next one number five is for me yeah, it's not you, it's me approach.

Effective Doubles Staggering Strategy

Speaker 2

Yeah. So we did an interview last week and you said something that really I thought was pretty ingenious. To where, just like you said and you just mentioned, like you really like strategy, you really like analyzing the matches, making in-game adjustments. And now most people who figure themselves to be a great tactician they often will be thinking I'm a great tactician, my partner's a little more experienced I should go tell them hey, why don't you stand over here? Or why don't you hit over here or let's poach, basically being the conductor and saying let's do this because I know better and I love how you basically would turn it around.

Speaker 2

You would say something like I'm having trouble hitting this serve over there. Do you mind if we play I formation for a little bit so that you can help me hold serve easier, because I'm struggling with this volley? So you said something like I'm kind of struggling with this right here and, plus, you've got an amazing forehand volley. Do you mind if we run this play? So I love how you kind of take this where you lead off by saying hey, I'm struggling with this, do you mind if we try that versus, like you're kind of hopeless?

Speaker 1

So why don't you go just stand there and I'll take care of everything which, unfortunately, we know happens a lot on a doubles court at the recreational level and maybe even at the pro level yeah, uh, I can attest to the fact that it definitely happens at the pro level as well, probably a little bit less often, but, um, I know that that's happened at the pro level as well. Yeah, I think the biggest thing from that is just trying to find a way to get to the same result that you want. So in the backhand volley example, it was a match where I was serving from the ad court and I was struggling to win points serving to the ad court and I know my partner at the net can't be super aggressive because they have their backhand volley in the middle. So instead of saying like, hey, we need to hide your backhand volley here, so let's try Australian formation, I'll say, hey, I'm struggling in this ad court rally.

Speaker 1

I think I might be better rallying from the deuce court, so let's try Australian formation. Plus, you have an awesome forehand volley, so that'll get you access to your forehand volley a little bit more often. So that's two wins there. So it's just the exact same result. It's the exact same thing. We're just rephrasing it in a way. That's kind of building up your partner and building up the team, rather than trying to place blame or tear someone down.

Speaker 2

So it's genius. And even if you're the better player or the better tactician, one thing everybody's got to understand is you need your partner, who's maybe not at your level, playing wise. You need them to make big shots, just like a basketball team needs everybody on the floor at some point to hit a big shot that could turn the match around, and so if you make your partner feel small out there, you're going to get the opposite result of what you want 100%, and it's not going to be as fun either. No.

Speaker 1

So number six here, Gigi's Stagger.

Speaker 2

Yeah. So this is a really. The more I've actually used this in my own coaching, I really realize how effective it is. So I first heard it at TennisCon, where she talked about teams need to stagger, which I'll explain in a second. Then I went and helped her with a Bryan Brothers camp. They ran the stagger there. Then we did Tennis Con Live. We did the stagger there. Then I did a doubles camp with Maribon Aranched, who runs the Tennis Summit, which is also a great event, and we did the stagger there.

Speaker 2

And once you see it click with people, it's really cool to see them move and to see them cover shots that they don't usually make and to see them working as a team without even really having to communicate. And it's a very simple thing. It's basically when you're both at the net you shouldn't too often be dead, even with each other as far as at the same level, where, if you were to look over to your right or your left, that they're staying right at the same spot as you. You need one person a little up, one person a little back in the box and basically, whatever side the ball, the court, the ball is on, that person needs to be more forward and the other person needs to play a little back so that the person more forward can challenge the ball, get to the middle net strap easier to get a poach, can challenge the ball, get to the middle net strap easier to get a poach and if there is a lob, that person who's further back can have a better angle to possibly run down a lob and also just keep more balls in play. And it's really cool how it works that stagger.

Speaker 2

And what I found interesting is she's not that concerned with telling people to in fact she kind of is a little bit against it to follow the ball. We've always been taught at the net you follow the ball and over the years I think she just found it to be too confusing. And I think one of her pet peeves is people tend to recreational players tend to over cover the ball. So if the ball is moving towards the alley, basically the students usually would go okay, I need to cover the ball, so I'm going to get right in the alley, and she would be like no, no, no, now, basically what we're doing is we're opening up the middle a lot often you have no chance now to poach and be effective.

Speaker 2

You're like you're just completely out of the play now. So she's like I don't really focus on following the ball. And what I found was and when I first heard that I'm like I don't know about that Because I mean you kind of need the shade I call it shading to the ball. You kind of do need to shade to the ball. But what I found is, the more I ran with my students, they would instinctually start to do that where they'd shade a little bit without being so exact in the terms of like following the ball. So they did start to naturally shade more towards the ball and not over cover. And there wasn't many passing shots really when I watched these live ball points. So it's really really cool If you're listening and you don't quite get the visual, definitely either do one of the tennis cons or she's got it on video. If you ever go train with her.

Speaker 1

The stagger is super effective she mentioned in my podcast episode with her a while back and uh so.

Speaker 1

So for people listening to clarify basically, if you're cross court from the ball, you're the player that's further back and you're the one kind of covering the lob a bit more, because the cross court lob is the easiest lob, because you have more court to work with.

Doubles Strategy and TennisCon 8

Speaker 1

So you give up the down the line lob a bit more because it's a shorter court, it's a lower percentage shot and I think this is super important for the club level, where we're not as agile as we used to be, we're not as fast as we used to be. So we can't, like a lot of the pros do, especially on the men's side, like you see behind me, both get right on top of the net. You know, because those guys can get back to the baseline so fast, you can't put pace on a lob right. So a 3-5 lob is the exact same as an ATP top 10 lob. It's not any faster or slower. What's faster is the player running back to cover it. So as club level players, we do have to at times against certain teams, decide how to handle that and this stagger solution is a great solution for that that's really, really good.

Speaker 2

I like that. I've never thought about that. The ball, the lob, is the same speed, but the players are not, and that is a very, very good point.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's something because I've been big on the lob return recently and I've been trying to I'm in the middle of writing a blog post on it and trying to make sense of it all like come out when I start writing, you know, and I was trying to figure out, like, at the pro level at the U S open this year, I was watching some doubles matches with Craig O'Shaughnessy and we both noticed that all these players are using the lob return off of first serve a ton. This is at the ATP level. So I was like, if they're doing it, like why can't we do this at the club level? And then I'm trying to like factor in all these different things. So like, if they're doing it, why can't we do this at the club level? And then I'm trying to factor in all these different things. So they've obviously got better overheads, which means we should be using it more often because we're hitting against worse net players. So there's a whole list of factors we could go through, but that'll be for another day.

Speaker 1

So let's move on to number seven. Will Hamilton's racket below the wrist? Poach tell.

Speaker 2

Yes, this is really good. You know, will is known for his playbooks, but he came out with something called like the little book of tells or something like that. So they're just little things that you can see that think about like poker. Right, that's a tell. Like, okay, they're just showing me a tell so I can probably do this. And so what one of the tells was is that if your partner who's returning can hit a return low at a certain value, or someone who's coming to the net and you see that their racket has to then go below the wrist.

Speaker 2

So when we think about a good volley or an easier volley and you think about your hands, the racket head is usually above your wrist.

Speaker 2

Well, if it's low and below your wrist, he's like that person, when they see that at the net, should step up to the middle and basically pinch or poach almost every time and even if you, sometimes the person gets you know where they see it early and they make a great shot and they burn you down the alley. He's like that's actually good, because the odds of them being able to do that consistently that could give them a false sense of confidence. So they might keep trying to do that because they know you're going. Every time the racket, the wrist goes below the racket and they'll probably just start making a ton of unforced errors. So it's really kind of a gotcha play. You keep trying to go up the alley because I'm moving, you're probably going to miss a lot or be like 50-50 on it. Remember, all you got to do is break once or serve once or twice hopefully, ideally in a match to win the set, or I'm going to get to basically cross that middle and absolutely crush the short play.

Speaker 1

Yeah, that's a really good one. I think one of the things that's required for this, that people have to learn and train themselves on, is to have their eyes forward at the net, on the player. A lot of us at the net look back and watch our partner hit, or we're kind of following the ball. But if in the serve and volley example, if my partner's returning, I'll watch the ball land, because I do like to do that, to call it long for my partner, and then my eyes need to immediately go to the players on the other side of the net. And if you're not doing that, you're not going to see that racket drop early enough and then you're not going to be able to poach or pinch early enough. You're going to be a little bit late on that. So you've got to get your eyes forward on those players and then, yeah, on that serve and volley player, the racket head drops and that's your cue or your tell, to kind of move towards the middle. So last one here, another one from Gigi her singles approach strategy for doubles.

Speaker 2

Yeah. So again, I think as tennis players we always crave excitement and the alley in doubles, since it, you know, hit to basically where they had to leave. But Gigi says I want my recreational players to, when they get an approach shot, don't be aiming for the alley, keep your approach shots in the singles court because, yes, it can feel awesome to hit that shot, to get that alley ball and sometimes some good things can happen. But what happens more often than not that she found is that because you're getting the alley now all of a sudden, what's the rule? You return an angle with an angle, so you're creating this angle and now the person who's going to have the passing shots. They generally have more angles to hit and it gets tougher as a unit to cover all the angles. Lots of times there's a gap, there's a break somewhere in that court to where your opponent can see that and often pass you, where, if you keep it in the singles court, you cut down on all those angles. There's less places for the passing shot person to go. There's a greater chance that now you and your partner especially you're in that stagger position are going to be able to get a really good look at a volley, you're going to be able to volley above your waist. And now you're in the driver's seat.

Speaker 2

I got to interview john nukeman. He basically says when I was playing, if I had a volley above my waist, I'm not losing the point. Like I'm gonna win the point every time I get a volley. So that's the goal. Like can I, if I can set myself up, get be my partner in that, make the opponent have to hit up? We get to hit down. Great things are going to happen yeah.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think in general I really like that a lot and I think in general for club players, there's almost no time ever that I would recommend actually aiming for the double sally. You know, approach shots, certainly, and that makes a ton of sense. And then you get into the stagger formation like you're talking about, you're taking away their angles angles not only to hit a passing shot, but you're also creating an easier angle for them to lob off of too. If you take them, say, super wide in the deuce court, they can just lob it back up cross court and they've got tons of room to work with on that lob, whereas if you hit more through the middle, that lob angle isn't really there as much. So really good advice there from Gigi. Awesome. So that's all eight doubles lessons. So, pete, tell us when does TennisCon 8 start? So today people are listening to this. It's going to be Wednesday the 23rd. Tell us when TennisCon 8 starts and anything else we should know.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so TennisCon 8 is going to start October 28th. That's a Monday. We basically go Monday. We also have a kickoff party on the 27th at night, but we basically go through the week, usually Monday to Saturday or Sunday. We give you guys a chance to kind of binge watch it on the weekend, but all the sessions will be released Monday through Friday. We have some great pre-recorded stuff to where the coaches go on the court.

Speaker 2

I thought one thing that was so awesome this year is I got Brady Height, and his last name is perfect because he's like I think he looks like he's 6'8", something like that. He actually gave a lesson. I rolled the dice. I'm like, hey, brady, what do you think if you do a lesson on how to beat tall players? He's like I'll do it. So he gives secrets on how to beat tall players.

Speaker 2

Ryan Rees is talking about how to master the net. Jorge gave a great doubles lesson. You give a great doubles lesson. You give a great doubles lesson. I mean, there's just so many amazing sessions that really, if you take advantage of one session maybe even five minutes of one session if you truly take advantage of it, use it, practice it, eat, breathe, live it, you're going to get your money's worth just off of one lesson, but to think that you got 40 masterclasses, and I think that's what's becoming more and more valuable.

Speaker 2

If you go on Instagram, you go on YouTube, everything's basically trending towards a short video and they're great. They're like nice little bites you can eat and you go. That was yummy, that's a good tip, that was fun to watch my dopamine's flying high, but it's really not going to help you out there in a match you know where. If you watch a lot of these masterclasses, it's really taking the time to explain. You know the science behind everything why you do it, the process on how to do it, the drills on how to practice it, the things that can go wrong, the things that go right. So you really go okay. Now I really understand this concept and I see the roadmap ahead of how to get myself to the next level, and that's what I'm just so grateful for to be running this event.

Speaker 1

Yeah, so so cool. Yeah, I'm looking through all the talks right now and, yeah, I mean there's nutrition on here, Pilates, like stuff that's tennis related, but kind of something you might not expect from something called Tennis Con. But then, of course, serve checkpoints, how to hit a kick, serve two-handed backhand masterclass, a bunch of different stuff here. So we'll link to all of this in the show notes so people can sign up again. It's totally free for for a limited time, and then if you want to upgrade, you can do that, for I don't remember the price exactly, but it's just something ridiculously low for the amount of access to these coaches that you get. And then on those what are they called? Products, at the end you can contribute to the Hurricane Relief Fund as well.

Speaker 2

Yeah, that's right. After you purchase I do this every year I give some really great bonus training that you can access for a steep discount. They're basically called one-time offers. You're not going to see it again that low. But as a thank you for signing up and getting lifetime, I give you some of my best stuff for a super low price. If you want more training, if you want more training, and what we're doing this year, that's 100% going to Metropolitan Ministries so that we can help people get food, shelter, water, get back on their feet from the hurricanes that have devastated Florida.

Speaker 1

That's awesome. Yeah, I know they need it for sure, so awesome that you're doing that. All right well, thanks Pete for coming on. Thanks everyone for listening. I'll include everything in the show notes again and I will talk to you all soon, thank you.