Doubles from the Beginning

Doubles positioning, communication, and strategy (part 1): There are four people required to play doubles. As you look on the court the alleys (outside lanes) are used. In singles the alleys are out of bounds. The skills required to play a solid game of doubles include, positioning yourself during the point for best matching your opponent’s return, taking balls out of the air on the fly (volleys), locating your serve with a high first serve percentage, returning the serve away from the net player, and isolating groundstrokes away from your opponent’s best strike zone, and matching your partner’s strengths to yours while minimizing your weaknesses. As you play with different partners and gain experience with the game of doubles you will learn what shots are best in given situations.

 In the beginning of a match all four players warm up, first starting with mini-tennis at the service line for a quick minute and then backing up to rally full court. It is typical for players to warm up with their opponents. Each player is rallying (hitting the ball off the ground with forehands and backhands) one on one, while using one half of the court. There are two rallies going on at the same time. After five minutes, one team will go up to the net and hit a few volleys and over-heads, followed by the next team who does the same, then, each player will serve cross court to each other, catch the ball and serve it back. This takes about ten to twelve minutes. It is important to hit all the shots during the warm-up to get ready to compete. If you do not warm-up you can risk injury and are likely to start off with poor timing. After the warm-up is over, one of the players will call up or down (usually the bottom of the racket) to decide who serves first and the side which each team will begin the game. Players usually play two out of three sets where the team that wins six games first by a margin of two wins a set. Typically a twelve point tie-break is played at six games each to decide the set. If each team wins a set then the third set may be played out or a 10 point super tie-break is played.

After deciding which team serves and the player to start serving, both teams position for doubles. The receiving team positions a player on the right side of the court (deuce) and one player on the left side of the court (ad). The scoring is 15, 30, 40, game. At 40 all, it is known as deuce. Play always starts serving on the right. You have two serves to get the ball in the court. If you miss it is called a fault. If you double fault you lose the point. When the serving team wins the deuce point it is known as ad in. If the receiving team wins the deuce point then it is ad out. The score is always said serving team first and then the receiving team.

The serving team must repeat the score before starting a new point. Every odd game the teams switch sides of the net and are permitted a 90 second break with the exception of the first game of a set. Players must play continuously with no interruption. Servers must get the next point started within 25 seconds. The team making the call on their side on the net determines whether a ball is in or out. If it touches the line it is good. Calls are made promptly. After a serving order is established it cannot be altered to the next set. The same is true for the designated receiver sides or order. These are the basic rules of doubles.