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Communicating
with your partner in doubles
By Dr. Robert Heller |
Playing doubles requires good communication between you and your partner
on a number of levels. If you and your partner have good communication,
you can be winners on the court, even if a match turns out not to
go your way. If you don’t have good communication, a match can
be a downer, even if you happen to win it. Therefore, making an effort
to work towards good communication will help you to play your best
and better enjoy the tennis experience.
Ideally, it would always be an advantage if you always were able to
pick your partner. This ability will enable you to choose someone
whose skills are as good or better than your own skills, and someone
whose style of play compliments your own style. It also would help
in that, hopefully, you can select a partner who you get along with
and genuinely like and respect. Nevertheless, often times you may
be thrown together with someone you barely know out of circumstances
or necessity. When this happens, your communication skills (listening
and expressing) will need to go into overdrive because the key here
is “gelling” quickly as a team.
There are two basic types of communication: strategic and supportive.
Strategic communication focuses on discussing tactics between points
and rapid decision-making during points. At the beginning of a match,
you want to discuss who is going to play what side of the court, which
one of you will serve first, whether your partner comes to the net
or plays back, any general strengths of weaknesses each of you have,
and any injuries or conditions which may limit or inhibit what you
do on court. Since the warm-up provides some opportunity to assess
your opponents, you want to share information with each other about
the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing team. For example, if
one of your opponents is clearly the stronger player, you may seek
to overplay to the other opponent.
The other components you might discuss in terms of strategy is whether
you’ll use non-verbal signals and what the signals would be
(fist for go, open hand for stay, etc). Partners also should discuss
whether they plan to do any poaching – no one wants to be surprised
by finding their partner unexpectedly coming over to your own side
of the court, and you certainly don’t want to collide into each
other because you’re both going for the same ball.
Strategic communication “between” the points would also
include alerting your partner if you plan to lob the return of serve,
hit at the net person or down the line, whether you plan to stay back
when your partner is receiving a powerful first serve and so on.
Strategic communication “during” the points is limited
to split-second decisions such as “I got it”, “You
take it”, “Let it go”, “Short” etc.
This type of communication reduces confusion and improves a player’s
reaction time and decision-making.
Supportive communication is the second key element to the equation,
and perhaps the most important type of communication in doubles. The
words and gestures you convey to your partner can provide confidence,
but they could also convey discouragement at critical times during
the match.
Immediately following your next doubles match, assess your interactions
with your partner. For example, when your partner double faulted on
game point, what did you do? Frown? Curse under your breath? Avoid
any eye contact with your partner? Or, did you say something encouraging
such as, “Forget about it.” “The wind is tough on
that side today.” or “We will break them this game.”
When we miss a shot or are losing or playing badly, the tendency is
to lose confidence or feel like we are letting the other person down.
This can lead to pessimism, loss of intensity and focus. The optimistic,
positive and alert partner can limit discouragement and disappointment.
Some weeks ago, I played a doubles match and had a supportive partner
who was an effective communicator. He seemed to sense I was disappointed
when I ended a long exchange by netting the volley and immediately
said, “That’s okay you closed well.”
The effective partner looks for opportunities to praise and reinforce
good effort, strategy and winning shots. Later on in the match, when
I was able to hit a short angle service return in the ad court, my
partner was able to pick-off the volley for an easy point. He immediately
smiled and said, “That’s a great return - low, wide and
to his backhand. Keep making him run.”
Always remember that the ideal partner has the knack to “make
lemonade from lemons.” We were playing a much superior team
who were “on” as well. Following a series of great exchanges
that they won, we were down 5-1. My partner replied, “We are
making them play their best. They are excellent players. Let’s
just have fun and enjoy this really good tennis.” We ended up
losing the match 6-4, 6-3, but the competition raised our level of
play and we both felt good about the experience.
By working on strategic and supportive communication styles in your
doubles, you can significantly improve your level of tennis and comfort
on the court.
Dr. Robert Heller is a sports psychology consultant and tennis teaching
professional based in Boca Raton, Florida. His new two-volume CD-ROM,
TENNISMIND, is available through Tennis Life Magazine. For information
on workshops and telephone coaching sessions, please call 561-451-2731
or e-mail: "robertheller@adelphia.net. |
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