Doubles Only Tennis Podcast

AMA: Playing Down to Your Opponent's Level, Finding Weaknesses, Long-Term Partners, & More

• Will Boucek • Episode 273

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I recently asked Tennis Tribe Members what they want to improve in 2026. In this episode, I respond to six of their answers with challenges to help them improve different strategic and mental aspects of their doubles games.

Topics include playing against players who don't follow patterns and mishit the ball, building patience on slow balls, and taking away the middle against pace and spin. I also share drills, mindset resets, and simple challenges to improve your on-court thinking.

The first 3 are free to all, while you'll need to become a member for the last 3.

  1. How to deal with unconventional 3.0 players who defy patterns and mishit/shank the ball a lot.
  2. Changing your mindset to minimize errors, especially against players who hit with slower pace.
  3. How to still control the middle against players who hit with tons of spin and power.
  4. Members only: Quickly recognizing and exposing opponents' weaknesses early in the match.
  5. Members only: How to not let nerves or distractions make you play tentative or down to your opponent's level.
  6. Members only: How to play more strategically with a long-time partner and use more formations.

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**Other Free Doubles Content**

Indian Wells Trip And Camps

Beating Random Shanks With Percentages

The 55 Percent Mindset Challenge

Patience Over Power On Transition Balls

Training Height, Depth, And 60 Percent Pace

Controlling The Middle Against Heavy Spin

SPEAKER_00

Hey everyone, welcome to the show. It's been a while since I've done one of these episodes, but we are going to answer some member questions today. So this is going to be a member episode. I'm going to answer six different questions. The first three are free for everyone, and then the last three are going to be for members only. We're going to talk about how to deal with random slash unconventional players who shink a lot. This question was from a 3-0 player. We're going to talk about changing your mindset to minimize errors. I really love this topic. How to control the middle against players who hit with more spin and pace, recognizing opponents' weaknesses, especially early on in the match. Then after that, I'll discuss how to not let nerves and distractions make you play tentatively, or this is a question I get a lot, play down to your opponent's level. A lot of people email me or message me through Instagram and say, How do I stop playing down to my opponent's level? Well, I'm going to talk about that in uh part five of this podcast. And then the last question is going to be about how to play more strategically with a long-term partner and start using formation. So if you play in a league or a tournament and you have a consistent partner, that's going to be really beneficial for you. Before I get to the questions, a couple of quick announcements. So number one, Indian Wells is coming up. Um, the rally trip, which I've mentioned uh on a few podcast episodes, is going to be March 3rd through 6th. That is an all-inclusive Indian Wells tennis vacation. So you're going to uh play four and a half hours of tennis with me on the court with you. Uh so it's going to be some really fun doubles clinics. You'll learn a lot. Uh tickets to the tournament are included. You're staying at the La Quinta Resort and Tennis Club, which is where a lot of players stay as well. Um, and I believe we have some uh Desert Smash tickets left available as well, which is a charity event at La Quinta. So it'll be just outside your hotel room where a lot of celebrities and uh tennis players, um pro tennis players like Rubakina, I know Djokovic has made appearances before and more play in that as well. So I believe we have a few more tickets left for that. Um, reach out to me if you have questions or are interested. Uh, I think the sign-up deadline is the 9th of February, so it's coming up very, very soon in just a couple days. Um, I will link to it in the show notes if you do want to sign up. Um, but reach out if you have questions. Uh next, doubles camps. So I've been promising these for a while. Um they are off the ground and running in Fort Worth, where I live, uh near Dallas. I am hosting a camp April 11th and 12th. So if you want to sign up for that, you can go to the tennistribe.com slash camps and you'll see all of the upcoming camps there. I'll also have a camp in Miami April 18th and 19th. Registration is not yet open for that one, uh, but it will be coming soon. So if you do want to sign up for a camp, let me know or just go to the tennistribe.com slash camps to sign up. And I'm working on more in some different cities uh around the country later this year as well. I'm hoping to be in DC late July. Uh I'm talking to some different clubs in the LA area for this October or November. I'll probably try to host more in the Dallas Fort Worth area as well. So um, if you want to sign up for those, again, go to the tennistribe.com slash camps. So let's dive into these questions. These are some really good strategy questions, and these are pretty specific. I I really like these kind of detailed uh get into the weeds types of questions. Um, so this one is from Grace. Uh, all of these questions are from Tennis Tribe members. So I I actually reached out to all of my members, had them fill out a form, and have them tell me uh the thing they want to improve in 2026. And I'm kind of answering those in video format for them. Uh, but all of these questions seem to be uh lend themselves to audio a bit more, so that's why uh we have this podcast. So Grace uh says I play 3-0 women's doubles. At this level, many of the shots are completely random. Players don't follow patterns that many tennis lessons slash YouTube teaches. How can I increase my anticipation when players defy patterns and shank slash mishit the ball a lot? So what I would say, Grace, is um, and I don't think you're gonna love this answer actually, but our memories fool us on the tennis court. So what happens is we remember the three, four, maybe five points where they hit a shank winner or they mishit the volley and it ends up being an angle for a winner or a drop shot. What we don't remember is we don't remember the 14 times we missed a return. We don't remember the 12 balls that went slow and high over the net that we could have poached on on our partner's serve. So I've been on court with dozens and dozens and dozens of 3-0 ladies' doubles teams, and the patterns are there. That's not to say that these shanks and mishits don't happen maybe a little bit more often in doubles or in 3-0 doubles, but they still happen a minimal amount of time. It's not the thing that happens most. So the patterns and the percentages are still there. So even at 3-0, we have patterns, we still have to follow the percentages. And there's a few tendencies at 3-0 ladies' doubles that uh happen a bit more than some other skill levels or men's doubles, for example. So a lot of 3-0 players on the ladies side are very good at lobbing. So do they lob a lot? Or some players never lob. So that should dictate your net position, especially the depth at the net. So if they lob a lot, you're gonna have to play a little bit further back. You're gonna have to work on your overheads. If they don't lob a lot, you can play closer to the net and try to force errors that way. And they're going to hit some shanks that are gonna lob over your head, and that's okay, but that's not going to be the majority of the thing that happens, and that's not going to decide the match. Uh, where and how do they hit their forehand and backhand? So a lot of 3-0 players, basically all 3-0 players, prefer either their forehand or their backhand at that skill level. They're not super strong at both. So figure out which one's weaker and also figure out where they like to hit each one. So a lot of deuce court players at the 3-0 level, for example, only like to hit their forehand cross court. A lot of ad court players only like to hit their backhand cross-court. So, how can we make them hit it down the line? We can adjust our positioning, we can move differently at the net, and they'll beat us down the line some. They'll even shank some winners down the line. But over the long haul, we're going to win the majority of those points. So we give up some of those shanks, we give up some of those winners, we give up some of the miss hits to take a bigger piece of the pie, which is those balls that are going across the middle that we can poach on. We want to focus on returns, on serves, on those first shots after that. You will lose some of these points off miss hits. Again, that's okay. Um, it's going to happen a minimal amount of time. The other thing we have to remember is we lose a lot of points in tennis. So if you heard, and I've talked about this before on the podcast, if you heard the Feder speech at uh a college, this was probably five years ago, maybe more, um, where he said he's lost 46%. He's only won 54% of the points he played in his career, and he's one of the best players of all time. That means if we're playing an 11-pointer, if we can win 11 and give the opponent nine points, that's a very close 11-pointer. But you're gonna win 90% of those matches if you win 55% of the points. So you're going to lose a lot of points in tennis. You just want to focus on that 55%, focus on the things that happen more often. And the shank winners and the miss hits are not the thing that happens most often at any level. Usually those shanks go out or in the net. So, with all of these questions, I have a challenge for each of you. Um, the idea behind this was to create a challenge for the members to get them to actually change something in their game on the court. So the challenge for you is really twofold. There's two different uh aspects to it here. So, number one is after each shank or low percentage shot where you feel like they didn't follow a pattern and they defied the patterns and they they hit mishit the ball and you lost the point. I want you to ask yourself out of ten, how likely is that shot to go in? So was that a three out of ten shot or was that a seven out of ten shot? If they're hitting it off their frame, it is a three out of ten shot, probably a one out of ten shot, because a three-o level player can't hit it consistently in the sweet spot of their strings. Your frame is even smaller, so they're not gonna be able to consistently hit their frame for winners. So after each one of those, just ask yourself and almost tell yourself look, that was one of the three out of ten. We're gonna give that one up. I'm more worried about the returns, the poaches, the high percentage plays. And then another challenge, this one's a bit more actionable because that first one was a little bit uh more mental, something you have to remind yourself of. So get a pen and paper, get a notepad, and keep it in your tennis bag, and do the same thing on changeovers. And write down for each game. I win that game X out of ten times. So it could be six out of ten times, it could be five out of ten times, maybe it was a really long deuce game, it could be ten out of ten times, maybe we held serve, won 40 love, and it was a very easy game. But maybe they hit two lines, they got a lucky net chord, and that's why they we lost that game. So I probably win that game six, seven out of ten times, even though I lost it, because they hit the line twice, which is not common at the 3-0 level. That's a low percentage shot, and they got a lucky net chord or two. That's also just unlucky. So we're gonna win that game seven out of ten times. And at the end of the match, you can review that, and you'll have maybe 20 different lines where I win that game three out of 10, I win that game six out of ten, I win that game five out of ten. And you can review that and you want to consistently be obviously above that five out of ten mark. And you have to be honest with yourself about this stuff. Okay. We have to not allow our memories to fool us to kind of circle back to the beginning. We have to remember that most of the shanks are going to go out, most of the miss hits are going to go out, and we need to worry about the things that happen most often. So get that pen and paper, put it in your bag, and write that down on changeovers, review it after the match. You might even annotate if it was your serve, your partner's serve, or uh the other team's serve, and then you can kind of break down um which games you kind of struggled with more, and then from there you can make adjustments. So that is my challenge for you, Grace. I promise you, um, if they are shanking the ball consistently, they're not going to win the match. So let's move on to the second question here. This one's from Angie. She says, I want to be more patient in points and minimize errors generated. I have a tendency to rush and try to end the point because I can generate pace off a slow ball, but often I'm overexcited and end up dumping dumping it into the net, trying to focus on form and technique instead of pace and power. My partner and I are headed to NTRP Nationals in April. Um, congrats on making nationals, first off, Angie. Uh, so this is a common one. Definitely um the place I would start is I just want to share that power, and I've talked about this before as well. Power is definitely my least favorite way to win a match. So there are uh seven or eight ways to force an error. I've talked about this on the podcast. You can force an error by using direction, using height, uh, using positioning, using movement, using power. Again, my least favorite, uh spin. Um, and there's one or two others that I'm probably missing there, but uh, power is definitely my least favorite. And what you need to do is practice some of these slow transition balls, and you want to go to big targets on these. So if I was doing this, I would set up the ball machine. Let's say I'm a deuce court returner. I would set up the ball machine in the deuce court on the other side of the net, or have a coach feed balls to me that are a little bit slow. I want these balls to land inside the service box, have them go high over the net, basically like an approach shot. This is kind of my understanding of your question and what you're talking about. And I'm gonna aim right back at the ball machine. I'm gonna go right back deep in the deuce court, in the singles court. And if your tendency is to miss in the net, I want you to really focus on height. Um, we had a high school player actually last year who was struggling with this on his forehand. He liked to hit his forehand really big, but it was pretty flat and he didn't have a lot of height on it, so he had too many net errors. So I actually got this long ribbon and put two broomsticks in the net um next to the net post. So I kind of weaved it through the net and I tied the ribbon about three feet above the height of the net. And I told him you have to hit every forehand above that ribbon, and it was going all the way across the net, uh, three feet above the height of the net. I said, You have to hit every forehand above that ribbon. If it goes below that ribbon, you lose the point. And we had him play a set against one of our other players, and that helped him realize the height that he needs to be hitting with, and it helped him practice that shot. So, really focus on that height. With these transition shots, we want to focus on low risk tennis. So, recently in one of the newsletters, I talked about how my best tennis, I basically never go for winners unless I'm within a few feet of the net. So I don't take any risk on basically any shot. And that includes transition shots. I'm using this shot as a way to transition to the net. I'm not trying to hit a winner. I'm not even necessarily trying to force an error with the type of ball I hit. I'm trying to force an error with my placement and positioning. So we want to think if you try tend to overpower these, think 60% pace on really everything. If you tend to hit the ball too hard, if you tend to make errors because you're trying to hit the ball too hard, just think 60% pace on everything. Another way to think about this is let's say this slow incoming ball is coming in at 30 miles an hour. I don't know how fast these balls are, but let's say it's 30 miles an hour. And you're trying to add pace to it, and you want to hit it really hard, and you're trying to double it and send it back at 60 miles an hour. I want you to get rid of that and instead for this 30 mile an hour ball coming in, just match the pace. Hit it 30 miles an hour back because it doesn't matter how hard you hit it back to them if you're missing too much. So for a while, just match the pace, focus on depth, which is way more important than pace on a transition shot. And then you can slowly ramp it up as you develop more confidence in these types of shots. So again, power is my least favorite way to win. Um, I'll leave you with kind of a quote from uh one of my favorite coaches who used to work with Novak Djokovic, Craig O'Shaughnessy. Um says, How you hit the ball matters, but where you hit it matters more. So that's one of the reasons that power is one of my least favorite ways to win because we end up making too many errors. And what really matters is where the ball lands. So I want you to match the pace of the incoming ball and just get it to land deeper in the court. And then you're approaching the net and then you're forcing them to come up with a good shot. So this is kind of a mindset challenge for you, but I want you to do this in a uh a double, an upcoming doubles match, probably a practice match for you, Angie. I'm going, tell yourself this. I'm going for zero winners in this match. Instead, I will hit to the opponent's weakness, make them uncomfortable, and force errors. So the entire match, I don't want you to try to hit any winners. Try to only force errors and tell yourself that between every point, every game. Write it on your wristband if you can, um, and remind yourself of that for an entire match. And what's gonna happen is you're gonna learn a ton about what is actually effective to force errors from the opponent. And power is not always one of those things. So that is my challenge for you. So next we'll move on to number three. So Veronique says, I am an aggressive net player. Uh, I'm a 4-0 player. When I play against stronger players or those who use more spin, I feel useless and late. I want to control the middle more. So I think she's talking about the net. So I'm gonna talk about how to handle that when you're at the net. So we've all been there. You're playing somebody who maybe is a little bit higher skill level, especially from the baseline. Maybe they have a big forehand and they're rallying with your partner, maybe your partner's in a bad matchup, and you just don't know how to help them at the net. The ball has too much pace, it has too much spin. The first key to this, and I'm gonna go through several different things here, but the first key to this is practice voling against this type of ball. Um, one of the best ways to do that is with a ball machine. So when I'm practicing with a ball machine, I always ramp up the pace, or in your case, Veronica, maybe the spin. So maybe you're going for a ball that's higher over the net, but it's got a lot of pace and it's a very heavy ball. Um, it's very difficult to handle. I'm always trying to ramp up these uh characteristics of the incoming ball to where it's a little bit uncomfortable for me. So I want to feel a little bit nervous at the net when I'm practicing my volleys against the ball machine because I'm trying to expand my comfort zone. So I want you to practice this with a ball machine, or if you have a coach, they can feed this as well. It's a little bit more difficult to feed a heavy ball with a lot of top spin. Um, but uh some coaches can do it. So if you have a coach with a basket of balls, you can do that as well. Um, one of the other things that you have to do, so first off, practice the shot. Second, you have to have courage to go anyways at the net, even when you feel uncomfortable, even when the ball is moving with a lot of pace, a lot of spin, the opponent has a big forehand. It really requires courage. It's going to feel uncomfortable. You're going to miss some of these volleys, but you'll also make some, you'll force some errors, you'll shink some volley winners, which leads me to my next point. You probably need to play closer to the net against this type of player. So if they're hitting the ball fast, if they're hitting it with a lot of spin, that means it might be dipping. If you're a little bit too far back, it's going to dip a little bit lower. And it's a very difficult volley from further back from the net if the ball has a lot of top spin on it. So from closer, you can simply just stick your racket out and have a stable kind of grip and just deflect the ball to where you want it to go. So with more spin, with more pace from the opponent, you generally want to play a bit closer to the net. And then the last thing I would say, you you mentioned covering the middle. So I assume you're talking about poaching a bit more. When the opponent hits with more pace and spin, you cannot be off balance on these volleys. You've got to get there early. And Veronique, I believe you were at the uh doubles camp, and unless this is a different Veronique, I believe you were at my doubles camp in New York, and we did that poaching drill, and we talked about leaving early. So you can do that drill and do it against a ball machine or against a coach feeding and have them feed the type of ball that you're struggling with. And again, the key with this is to make it a pace and a spin that you're slightly uncomfortable with until you're comfortable with it, and then you level it up even more. So you want to always be a little bit uncomfortable there on the court. But leaving early is super important because we have to be balanced on these types of volleys against these types of ground strokes. So my challenge for you is to spend 10 minutes on this twice a week with a ball machine. Okay, so if you have a club you can go to and rent a ball machine, or um if you have a coach and they can feed it, that's okay too. And it needs to be an uncomfortable amount of pace and spin. So what I would do is set up the ball machine in the deuce court. I would be standing down the line from it in the ad court, shifting to my right, and have it feed cross court and just practice hitting these volleys. Practice angling them off the court. If it has a lot of spin, I imagine it's a little bit higher over the net. So that's a ball you can. Work on finishing. Um, so set up your targets, do it 10 minutes or five minutes from the deuce court, five minutes from the ad court, twice a week. If you have time to do it more than that, that'll be even more beneficial. But do that for the next eight weeks, and I guarantee you're going to become more comfortable with these types of shots, and you're going to be a much better doubles player and especially net player once you're done with that. So, next we're going to move into the member section. So, if you are a member, um, then be sure to check out the uh member podcast feed. If you're not a member, you can sign up in the show notes. I'll link to uh the tennistribe.com/slash memberships. Um, and any level of membership gets access to the premium podcast feed. So we're going to dive into uh again these last three questions where we're gonna talk about recognizing opponents' weaknesses early on in the match, not letting nerves or distractions uh make us play tentatively or down to our opponent's level, and then how to play more strategically with a long term partner and especially using formations.