Doubles Only Tennis Podcast
The only tennis podcast with a focus on doubles. We believe doubles should be more popular and get more coverage than it does, so we’re fixing that. Our goal is to help you become a better player with pro doubles tips and expert strategy. We interview ATP & WTA tour doubles players and top tennis coaches to help you improve your game.
Doubles Only Tennis Podcast
Luke Johnson Interview: Tiebreaker Strategy, Climbing the Rankings, & Winning the Barcelona ATP 500
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Luke Johnson is currently ranked #40 in ATP doubles and is coming off his biggest career win at the ATP 500 tournament in Barcelona with partner Sander Arends. I spoke with him earlier this week about his recent success, doubles strategy, and more.
- How he and Sander's complementary playing styles create an effective partnership
- Advantages to using different returning styles and court positioning
- The journey of rising through the ATP rankings, effectively halving his ranking each year for five consecutive years
- One practice lesson he's learned from his coach, Calvin Betton, that you can implement too
- College tennis as a developmental pathway
- Maintaining composure and strategic thinking during crucial tiebreakers
At the end, Luke breaks down the championship-winning 10-point tiebreaker from the Barcelona Final point-by-point.
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You're about to hear my conversation with Luke Johnson. Luke is at a career-high ranking of number 40 on the ATP Doubles Tour. He is coming off the biggest win of his career, the ATP 500 tournament in Barcelona. He's on an eight-match win streak at the time of me recording this and during this conversation we talk about what's gone right recently for he and his partner, sander Ahrens. We also talk about their partnership in general. What kind of makes them work together? They have different kind of game styles that we dive into. We also discuss college tennis a bit. What advice Luke would give himself back in 2019 when he made his Wimbledon debut.
Speaker 1We talk about what Luke has learned from his coach, calvin Betten, who I had earlier on the podcast earlier this year, and then we also discuss goals for the rest of the season and at the end of this episode we do something that I've never done on the podcast before. So I shared my screen and we actually watched the entire 10-point match tiebreaker from the Barcelona final which Luke and his partner won. Luke shares his mindset and some of the strategy and hand signals and communication that he had with his partner and what was going through his mind during this 10-point tiebreaker and how he approaches tiebreakers. So it was a really fun thing that I'm going to try to continue to do from time to time on the podcast. I'd love to hear your feedback.
Applying Pressure in Doubles Play
Speaker 1If you feel like you got a lot out of that, I published it on YouTube. So if you're listening to this on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or something like that, just look in the show notes and you should find a link to the YouTube channel and from there you can actually watch the video and follow along as Luke and I discuss what was going on in that tiebreaker. And then at the very end I asked Luke how we can make doubles more popular. So, without further delay, enjoy this conversation with the number 40 doubles player in the world, luke Johnson. Hey everyone, welcome to the show. Today we have ATP number 40 doubles player on, luke Johnson. Luke welcome. Thank you for having me here. Will Thanks Luke welcome. Thank you for having me here Will.
Speaker 1Thanks. So you are coming off the biggest title of your career in Barcelona and I wanted to start there. You actually had a win before that in Monza with your partner, sander Arens, and I wanted to ask just what went right. Over these couple of weeks in Monza and Barcelona, I noticed y'all won four matches in each tournament, so eight match winning streak. Only two of those matches went to a third set tiebreaker. So it seems like something has certainly been clicking. What do you attribute that to?
Speaker 2I don't know. I think we played in Marrakesh the week before monza and we actually played. We played a good match. Um, we lost I mean it felt like a. It felt like a tough loss at the time, but we lost a arne, edo and guinard, who then went on to win monte carlo the week after. So one of those losses that aged well. Um, and we felt like we did a few things.
Speaker 2Well, um, we felt like we did a few things, that we felt like we did a few things that we wanted to improve on, and so we thought we'd take Monza as a chance to hopefully get four matches and sort of put our game on the court. I mean, when we're playing well, we feel like we sort of have put pressure on. In all four games, we both return well. We have different styles of returning and serving at the net. We sort of try and have have good presence.
Speaker 2And I think we just wanted to get back to our sort of identity as a team, which was sort of building like lots of pressure over over the full match and building those building pressure through through doing everything well or everything as well as we could and through positional play and sort of getting back to that identity that we sort of had at the end of last year, the beginning of this year, and just get back winning again. I mean, we lost a few close matches in the end of Jan and Feb and then Sander got married in March, so we had a couple of weeks off there and then we just wanted to get back to it and get back to winning matches again. And, yeah, a couple of weeks off there, and then we just wanted to get back to it and get back to winning matches again. And yeah, I guess we did that, luckily. Yeah.
Building a Successful Partnership
Speaker 1Talk about when you say applying pressure, and especially in all four games. Usually I feel like teams have one particular game, that maybe they're a little bit more vulnerable, whether it's somebody's specific serve or or I guess on the return side it might be a specific return side, maybe one returner is weaker, but it sounds like for you all. You feel confident in all four areas. But what is like building pressure or applying pressure on the opponents mean to you, I think?
Speaker 2in the return games. It means like I I would classify myself as a returner that takes a few risks. I try to like access my percentage of returns in, maybe a little bit lower, but I try that. On those on the returns that do go in, I hope the quality is extremely high and sander is more of a sort of a continuous like. He puts a lot of returns in a few lobs, um, not maybe not as many winners or big shots, but the pressure is there through. He's putting the ball in. They're having to play three, four, five shots to win those those points.
Speaker 2On his side, um, and on my serve, sander obviously has an extremely good presence at the net and I stay back. So it's having that identity in the games and trying to have a lot of first serves, try and keep our variety up there and then when Sander's serving, he's serving volleys and we try and he's a great volleyer. So we just try and have plays that sort of fit the way that we think are going to win us the most points and sort of play those, play that type of point and that's those type of situations as much as we can.
Speaker 1I wonder if that that variety in terms of returning but then also serving makes it makes life more difficult for your opponents too. Right Like, is that something?
Speaker 1you all have like talked about, or is that something that, like you feel like makes the partnership work so well? Because, you know, if I'm facing like two players who serve in volley every time, well, I'm going to get into a rhythm there, right. Or? But if one of them serves and stays back and one of them serves in volleys, or one of them's blasting returns and the other one's hitting a lot of lobs, like I'm gonna have a lot more difficulty, I guess, on one versus the other and not able to find a rhythm yeah, I think.
Speaker 2So. I think that's what that's what we, we sort of hope to do, and we try to try to make it as difficult as we can for our opponents. I think about everyone's trying to do make it as difficult as you can. But I think we've got, we have an identity of how we, how we can do that to to different teams and it and the way sander does it and the way I do it is quite different. But we've been playing together since september now, um, basically the whole time, and we're sort of able to build and find that way that that works for both of us.
Speaker 2I mean, interestingly, we played our first tournament. We played together as a challenger, 125 in Porto last July, and this was when we both were set for the US Open. After that and things. So we weren't planning to play with each other the following tournaments, but we were both looking for a partner that week and we played it and it just sort of naturally really like fit well, um. And then that was when we sort of started thinking maybe this is going to work long-term if, if things were to to sort of fall that way after the U S open, which they ended up doing Um. So I think it's more naturally, the the things the game styles fell into fell into each other's hands.
Speaker 1Well, have there been other times I want to move on in a second, but this is interesting to me have there been other times in your career where you've maybe partnered with someone and early on you feel like, oh, this could work in that same way, but then it doesn't work out?
Rising Through the Rankings
Speaker 2um, no, it's not. No, usually usually it works. Yeah, I know you say yeah, usually when you have that feeling it work, it does work out for a period of time. I think what's been what's been good with sandra and I is we're both very let's sort of process orientated and so it worked out at the beginning. But then we were looking and we look into the data. I mean, calvin comes in with that and we look into the data and we look into things that we're doing well and we're trying to always improve them. So it's not been. We haven't really reached a point where we've been sort of plateauing yet. We're still always trying to improve and then find the best ways. So we had that initial good connection and then we're just trying to keep improving on that.
Speaker 1We didn't get complacent, I guess, with that so, speaking of improving, I was looking at your ranking earlier. Um, there's a atp coach I work with who, when he works with a player, one of the goals generally is to cut their ranking in half by each year. So if you're at 100 by the end of next year, you want to be at 50, and then 25 and then top 12 or 10. So you've been doing that since 2021, basically it looks like yeah, 2021. Basically it looks like, um, yeah, what? What do you attribute that increase in ranking and consistency over the last four or five years too? Uh, and how do you look at it? Do you look at it in like phases, like that, or, um, do you just trust the process? What's your kind of philosophy on it?
Speaker 2I mean, I have a. I have goals at the beginning of each year of where I would like to be at certain points with the ranking. Um, when I was I guess 2021 that was that was the time where 2021-2022 was the time where I really started focusing on just doubles. Um, I always played doubles and really enjoyed it and was much more successful in doubles. So the ranking has always been reasonably high in terms of a futures borderline Challengers level when I was still playing singles.
Speaker 2But I, I just tried then to, I wanted to half it and I always I probably wanted to make, I probably set very like high goals. Like, I think the year I sort of finished it was not last year, the year before I think I finished 117, I think it was, and I, I the goal that year was top 100 by the end of the year and it wasn't that. I was, I guess I wasn't disappointed to not make it, but it was more. That was just the goal at the start of the year when I was 220 the year before that. So it was, it was quite, would have been quite a significant jump. Um, and I think, yeah, to attribute, it's just, uh, I just played a lot of tennis.
Speaker 2I've been had some good partners. I've been. I think I've got a good coach who has been helpful and instrumental in in sort of just keeping me developing. But the goal has always been originally, when I was 250, the goal was I want to play the Masters, so the Masters 1000, the cut usually for them has been between 30 and 40 each for an individual, so 60 to 70 to 80 combined, and so I've always been sort of reaching for that and trying to build my game to what would it look like and how would it be? And the standards that I hold myself to in practice have been the ones that I think will get me to that, and the calvin's helped me to have been the ones that we think will get us to to be playing directly in the masters you mentioned uh data earlier.
Speaker 1How much do you look at that versus? I know a lot of players are more kind of feel players. How much? Where do you kind of fall in the those two camps?
College Tennis and Early Career
Speaker 2I like the data but I don't like I don't. I'm not so good at interpreting it myself. So Calvin, my coach, is extremely good at interpreting data, so he, we get the data through through the LTA, the British Federation, and then he is sort of able to decipher the good things, the bad things, where he thinks we can do better, where he thinks we're actually doing really well but we're not doing enough of this, or things like that, and so I like to receive the data. I'm not so good at being able to pick out the bits very well, but luckily Calvin's good at that, so he yeah, and how long have you been working with calvin?
Speaker 2since the first trip we did together was maybe it was right before the covid year, so I guess it would be the 2020. That was when he first started working with me full-time um. But I've known cal Calvin since I was maybe 12 or 13. He was, he was he's been involved. His a good friend of his was my coach when I was growing up from 13 to 18. So then he was, calvin was sort of involved. He would come and watch my matches then and do stats for my matches. And then when I came back from college, he, he was working with a different player. I was, um, I was at the team bath tennis Academy and he was busy and then it just sort of came back. I wanted to move back up North um to where we're both from Um, and so, yeah, I guess now it's been five years of this, but he's been in and around and involved with my tennis for many years now and share your story with us.
Speaker 1Um, I looked on wikipedia and saw you, uh, played a lot of cricket growing up, it sounds like. And then, of course, like college tennis, so share your kind of tennis story how you got to um where you are today.
Speaker 2Okay, I just I loved tennis and cricket were my two sports growing up, like I loved playing both of them. They sort of fit well together, one being a team sport, one being an individual sport. I think I always remember thinking that never in a time when I was growing up were both going badly, which I think is good. So there was obviously ups and downs with both of them. I sort of played county standard cricket until I was 15 or 16 years old and at that point I then decided that tennis was the one Like I really liked the individual aspect of it. I've just enjoyed tennis more. So then at that point I just decided to put I still played cricket for my club and things, but I still I wanted to play more tennis, put more of my eggs into that basket.
Speaker 2I was a, I would say, a reasonably good junior. I wasn't on an international stage setting the world alight, but I was good nationally. I sort of played a lot of national level tournaments and then at the under 18 nationals I made the semifinals of the singles there and, I think, the final of the doubles. And that was where the recruiting for college sort of picked up a notch, because there was quite a good amount of coaches there, and then there was some interest in some results, or notable results against players that they'd known. So then, yeah, then I ended up going to college and having, yeah, four really good years and you went to, uh, clemson, correct?
Speaker 1yes, yeah, I was at clemson. Yeah, what, um? What are your thoughts on, like the college versus pro experience? Obviously, um, or pathway, I should say um obviously a lot, of, a lot more and more players are going to college. Now you can even make a little bit of money in college, which helps. So what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2I think there's a lot of people who aren't sort of physically or emotionally or mentally developed enough at the age of 18 to go professional.
Speaker 2I think some people are and some people have the backing and they have. If you're going to go through futures extremely quickly, if you're at that level where you can fly through futures and get into challenges quickly, I think going pro makes sense because but there's a lot of players who get stuck in futures and it's tough. It's really tough If you're 18 and you're on your own for eight weeks in a set of tournaments and you don't have good results. I think you're just not ready for that. So I think college is a really good route there to where you can develop in all aspects of tennis and in life. And I think that's where college tennis is so good, because the level is so high. There's so many good players there. There is even people who would be good enough to go straight through futures who are in college, and those guys that you just learn so much and you improve so much and if you're having a decent scholarship, you're not losing any money and, like you said, now guys are making money.
Speaker 1So you made your grand slam debut at Wimbledon in 2019,. I read yeah. What advice would you give yourself back then?
Speaker 2back then. Um, I think that just it is. It doesn't. It doesn't mean as much as as you thought it did back then. I guess when you're going, when you go and you play play wimbledon for the first time it was it was you're like wow, this, this, you're thinking this might be my only time, so you're worried a little bit about that. At least I was. I remember thinking well, I need to do well, I need to. This is, I have to play well, I have to do this. Everyone's now all eyes are watching me. But I think people, a lot of people, are invested in the tennis, whether you're at Wimbledon or you're playing a lower level. The people that really care don't care so much what the level is. They just want to see you doing well and see you being successful.
Effective Practice and Training Philosophy
Speaker 2I think just relax and enjoy it as well. I mean, go out there. Honestly now, I couldn't remember the first probably two sets of that match. I mean we lost in straight sets. It was a five-set match, so we lost in straight sets. But even the next day I couldn't really remember the first couple of sets. By the third set I'd relaxed into it and was enjoying it, but the first two sets. It wasn't that I performed badly, it was just the whole experience was a bit of a blur and it was intense and it's a new experience. I was yeah, I would a bit of a blur and it was, uh, it was intense and it's a new experience. I was, yeah, I would just say relax and enjoy it and and just go out and play your tennis like yeah.
Speaker 1What so if I asked Calvin your biggest asset as a doubles player and then an area you need to work on, what do you think he would say?
Speaker 2I would say my biggest asset would be my returns couple of returners in the world, um, in a, in a sense, that I'm quite destructive in that and I can return very well off good serves. Um, if I ask, if you said, what do I need to work on? I mean my service partner, um, stuff, I'm, I am, we're working on it a lot, but it's something that, yeah, I just have to keep keep improving and always and always keep trying to work on, because if I don't do it, then it can drop, the level can drop, if I do it, the level can go up. And just trying to really really bring that up to a up to a world class standard.
Speaker 1What's one lesson that you've learned from Calvin that you would share with other tennis players that you think might help them?
Speaker 2share with other tennis players that you think might help them. The biggest one for me and it took a while it would be to not it sounds silly, but not to over-practice, not to practice just for the sake of practicing. To go out there with a specific target of what you want to get out of the practice and then you, you do that and if you've accomplished accomplished that, then you can maybe stop practicing for that day. If that takes an hour, you might have two things and each thing takes an hour, but then you don't need to go and do things just for the sake of doing things. You don't need to go out there and box tick for just to just so you feel good.
Speaker 2He always, he always wants the practices to be very concise. We obviously practice a good amount, but he wants the things to be to be very, very pointed as to what you're trying to work on, what you're trying to improve, and not just go out there and and try to feel good. Not try to convince yourself that you're you're trying to improve and not just go out there and try to feel good. Not try to convince yourself that you're doing the right things. Go out there and just really nail down on a few things.
Speaker 1So do you feel like you like practicing now versus maybe five years ago? You have more of maybe a plan or a focus within each practice than you did you have more of, maybe, a plan or a focus within each practice than you did?
Speaker 2Yeah, I would say so. Yeah, I would say so. I mean it's a difficult thing and at the beginning I didn't always like the practice. I would feel like I didn't come away with lots of rhythm. I didn't go out and hit hundreds of forehands cross court, hundreds of forehand and backhands cross court. We don't really do so much of that. If we do it, we would do it in a point-based situation where there is pressure and scoring pressure and constraints around where you can hit the ball and what type of shot you can hit, and so he's extremely good at sort of making the practices and making the drills teach you.
Speaker 2The drills that he's put together are sort of trying to teach you the things that he wants me to learn or improve on, without so much of less technical feedback yeah, that kind of makes sense to me too, because since, like certainly at the atp level, there's not a lot of points where you're hitting more than one, maybe two forehands in a row, exactly yeah, so to go out and hit 100 forehands, cross court or whatever is, it's probably not the best thing to translate to a match situation, exactly I mean he's very big on everything, everything you do in in the practice, translating to translating to the match court and even to a stage where, when we're practicing like we'll be, we'll be hitting, and then suddenly he'll want us to hit some serves and we'll hit serves for five minutes and then we'll go back to hitting again to sort of try and replicate where you're some one game you're serving and then one game you're at the net as a service partner, to then the next game you're returning and things like that, just to try, and so you don't, so you're able to sort of use the skills when you need them.
Speaker 2Not I don't need to, I don't need to hit 10 forehands before I can then hit my first good forehand.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I've read, I've read some research on this where it's like it was about like learning different motor skills and like if you're trying to hit let's say you're practicing like your wide serve in the deuce court or something like that, and you it's better to hit like one or two wide serves and then go T and then come back to it like one or two wide serves and then go t and then come back to it, then hit 80 straight wide serves, because you're not it does. There's something about your brain where, like it doesn't stick as much if you don't have that variety.
Speaker 2Exactly, yeah, and it kind of makes sense, yeah, to be able to do it with. The variety is then when you have sort of mastery of that skill and, like you said, in tennis you never would hit 10 wide serves in a row. You hit one and then you have to go to the add side. So a lot of when I'm practicing my serve will be I hit one serve, I'm trying to hit the wide serve, I have to hit the wide serve. If I miss it, I then hit a second serve, which will be a different type of serve, and then I'll go to the ad side and I'll have a serve I'm trying to improve there and I'll hit that, and then I go back to the juice side again. So there may be. So it's sort of replicating the, the match format of what, what, what it would be like to serve, and then the skills hopefully then show up on the match court okay, that, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1Um, you talked about goals. At this point, you're at number 40, probably with the exception of Madrid, you're probably in most of the Masters 1000s for the rest of the year. What other goals do you have for 2025?
Speaker 2we wanted. We said when we were in Australia this year, um, that by Australia next year, sandra and I wanted to be seeded, so that would be a top 16 team. Um, so that would be for the, obviously the end of this year. We want to be able to be either get in the masters by sort of post US Open, or, like the, the us swing sorry, the us masters we would hope to get. Our goal was to get into them. Um, maybe we'll play some masters before then. Um, we're not sure yet, but there would be. Hopefully we can get into them. That would be straight in on our ranking. Or be top 13 in the in the race to turin after the first six months, then gets you in the masters for the last six months okay, I didn't even know that rule.
Speaker 2Okay, yeah, so that would be, that would be a um, that would be. That's probably the biggest goal play the masters and then hopefully be seeded at the slams next year awesome.
Speaker 1Yeah, and it looked. I think y'all were 10 in the race right now, so 10 in the race.
Analyzing a Championship Tiebreaker
Speaker 2Yeah, we're in good spot, but there's a lot of points to be played for still Sure A hundred percent, all right.
Speaker 1So this month I am. So I have a membership with club level doubles players and we do different lessons and I do a webinar each month, and this month I'm talking about tiebreakers. What is your best advice for winning tiebreakers?
Speaker 2Keep your first serve percentage high. That will be an important one, I think. Try to dominate the middle of the court as a service partner, because I think the thing in tie breaks is that obviously everyone understands that they're important. You've usually at least played a long set to get to a tie break, or the third set is a super tie break. So at the end of the matches people are going to maybe play a little bit more conservatively and I think if you can make first serves and not and punish the balls that go through the middle, you can almost make your opponents try and hit towards the, towards the tram lines, towards the alleys, and maybe you get a few mistakes out of them that way.
Speaker 1I love it All right, so let's, I want to try something that we have not done before on the podcast, so we will see how this goes. I'm going to share my screen here and let me know if you can see this. People listening, um, I am sharing the, the final from barcelona, so y'all went to a third set tiebreaker, so it's a 10 point match tie break. We're going to go through these points and I'm going to have this published on youtube as well, so people who are listening can um go to our youtube channel and find it there. If you want to kind of follow along, um, but let's start here at zero zero. Let's just talk through, kind of what y'all are discussing. So you, you started with a huddle there. Um, a lot of people may not know what are you talking about in the huddle.
Speaker 2When you're the serve team, you're the one serving in this scenario yeah, I mean, so we just come off the back of the second set tie break which we lost seven one, maybe seven, two, I think seven one. So we were obviously they had a little bit of momentum coming in from the end of back of the second set tie break, which we lost 7-1, maybe 7-2, I think 7-1. So we were obviously they had a little bit of momentum coming in from the end of the second set. So the first thing we were saying was, look, we need to try and stamp our authority on the tie break, not let them sort of have another run of points.
Speaker 2I was starting to serve, so we're going to probably try and try and sort of go with a good first serve, one that I feel like I can make quite consistently, um, and sort of play, play, play from there. I mean try, and we sort of say when we're in that huddle we say where I'm going to serve and the move that sand is going to make, um, and then we sort of play from there after that okay, so we've got first serve here for you, serve wide and then the return error.
Speaker 1Yeah, so a good way to start the tie break. That has to give you like confidence, just going with your kind of a first serve that you know you're gonna make or you feel good about making, or you feel good about making.
Speaker 2Yeah, you feel good about making it. I think in the match I'd hit a lot of T serves and Joe had returned the backhand well, so it was a good change up there. Okay.
Speaker 1So then Neil's serving at 0-1. So how does your mindset shift here from first to second serve so your opponent misses their first serve? I notice you're let's go back a little bit there, so you're a little bit back, so y'all are playing two back there.
Speaker 2We generally play two back when our opponent plays, plays I formation. When Sanders returning, he likes to be able, he likes it for him, he feels that it sort of lets him see the whole court very well. If I stay back on the first and second serve, we're obviously he's trying to. He's trying to hit sort of a bigger return and try and put a bit of pressure. So with me up, hopefully if Sander can get it past the service partner, in this case Joe, and then we can really try and put some pressure on Neil early on in the tiebreak.
Speaker 1Okay, so we've got a second serve here. He does hit a good return, yeah he hit a good return.
Speaker 2Yeah, he hit a good return. I sort of crossed into the, into the middle um, and that was a great start from sander yeah, yeah, big return there.
Speaker 1And I want people to notice one thing here so when you cross towards the middle, this is something a lot of people, especially at the club level, don't get get Like would that down the line? Oh shoot, here we go. Would this down the line return? They end up For club level players. They're going to end up in this down the line rally and he can't really go cross court unless he's going to hit a lob. So for you to cross, there is just almost an obvious decision that a lot of people don't do at the lower levels and I want them to kind of take that away from this here.
Speaker 2Yeah, try and cross. And if, for example, I would try and have both my feet over the center line over the center line, okay, if I can have both my feet over, and then I can lunge and sort of make a backhand volley, if it's going in the singles court, and then hopefully he can't beat me cross court unless he hits an unbelievably good shot so in this scenario you're against I again. Yeah but sander plays, sander plays up on all of my returns yeah, so this makes sense.
Speaker 1You talked earlier about how he's a really good net player. You play more aggressively with your returns anyways, so then again I look at a second serve. So this is a huge thing. You talked about first serve percentage and the tiebreaker, and the opponents missed both first serves and then you end up even getting a double fault there, um, and you're immediately out to a double, double break lead yeah, and that was a yeah, that was a shock, that was a from our side, that was a.
Speaker 2That was a shock, but hopefully that's maybe pressure from the match telling.
Speaker 1Does your mindset, and even your strategy change at all? Being ahead in a tiebreaker especially the early on, you know 3-0, versus being behind? Do you try to play either more, take more risk or less risk, or how do you think about that?
Speaker 2I think you can maybe not more risk, but you're just a little bit more relaxed, so you're able to like a double break. We're sort of able to. We lost that point on Sanders' serve. We're still a mini breakup so we can try and sort of they're going to have to go for more and hopefully maybe make a few more more mistakes like, yeah, so that was a great second serve from sander which enabled me to sort of get a get a touch on the first ball, which is a, which is a big thing yeah, let's look at this one again.
Speaker 1So this is a difference between a lot of people listening and then your level, like y'all are staying more aggressive on second serve as the server's partner. But yeah, you're still kind of taking away the middle there.
Speaker 2Yeah, that was a. I needed to take that one. That would have been a very tricky volley for Sander had it gone down the middle to his backhand. There we sort of try and have a rule that the server doesn't hit. If he's on the juice side serving he wouldn't hit a backhand volley and if he's on the ad side serving hopefully he wouldn't hit a forehand volley. So I try and take away that inside volley.
Speaker 1Okay. So even on the ad side, the server's partner you want taking middle, yeah, great return from Sander. Yeah, that was that. That kind of lob return, yeah, that's. That's such a tough one. I you don't see many people. Usually the lob return is more of like a chip, and that was that almost had some top spin on it.
Speaker 2Yeah, it was almost a fast a fast lob yeah yeah, I think it was one of those, I think, where he was caught. I don't think because it was a very good serve from Joe. He couldn't do much more. Yeah, I think the plan was to go down the line, but the height of it just made it a very perfect return almost.
Speaker 1How do you communicate or think about when you are returning your return location? Are you and Sander communicating like I'm going to go line here? When are you doing that?
Speaker 2Or are you just kind of?
Speaker 2feeling decision, uh, where I'm going to go, usually before, before the point and try and adjust after through that. But sander likes to sort of wait and hold on his return a little bit longer and try and avoid, avoid the net player. Um, okay, I'm more of a. I'm just going to hit the return and hit it hopefully hard and accurately. Um, if it, if they go the right way, maybe they knock the volley off. If they go the wrong way, the server's going to have a really difficult volley, whereas Sander likes to hold and just try and avoid the net player.
Speaker 1Okay, so you're serving here Another first serve. That one looked more like a body serve there, I guess yeah that was a body serve Again.
Speaker 2That was the thing where we wanted another first serve. There. We felt that we could find one if we went body.
Speaker 1And then between first and second serve, sanders signaling behind his back. I know a lot of this stuff seems obvious to you, but the uh, really good forehand there, um, a lot of the listeners may not understand. So, between first and second serve, what is he signaling? Is it the serve location and movement like you talked about earlier? Is there something?
Speaker 2else. No, yeah, he's signaling where, where he, where I, he wants me to serve and where, um, where. Then he's going to move and I have a. I can sort of agree or disagree. So he can, we have a. He gives what he thinks and then I'll say yes to the location and then he'll move on to the what move and I'll say yes or no and then we go from there. I see so for.
Speaker 1So for first serves. This is something I've actually not talked to any players about. The location obviously matters, and then the net player's movement, but I would imagine the type of serve matters too, like if we're playing and we call a T-serve, like I kind of want to know if it's going to be more of a spin serve or a flat serve. Is that something you'll get into?
Speaker 2We do on the clay because there's obviously a little bit more variety. You can't just at least the way I serve and the way Sanders serves. There's less of a. You can't just serve through players. You don't serve like on the grass. You're pretty much always going to hit a big first serve because you can get so much purchase from it. On the clay we might sort of say, look, we'll go, I might go kick T here or kick wide or something, and then he can expect a different type of return and he can also time his movements because obviously there may be 20 or 30 kilometers an hour difference between the foot.
Speaker 1That those two serves, sure so that'll adjust like how you're going to move at the net, like how early exactly yeah, I see. So when you're towards the end of a tiebreaker, obviously you've got a big lead here up 8-3 serving. Is there anything you do to kind of keep your nerves calm or any advice you have for kind of handling nervousness?
Speaker 2I think for me, when I historically have been nervous, I would tend to rush, maybe, or try and just get the point started and play and those type of things. But the last sort of couple of years what's worked is just, for me, just taking a bit more time, especially I mean you have that when you're serving, when you're returning. I guess you're a lot more reactive here try and take a little bit, a little bit more time and just staying, staying brave, not not almost playing, playing safe, playing to win when you, when it's close, playing to win like really finish the match off with authority good first volley there.
Speaker 1Yeah, I like that answer because you first like noticed your, I guess, negative tendency that you have when you get nervous, and then you find a way to counter it right and it's probably going to be different for everyone. Exactly, yeah, I think it's about.
Speaker 2It's about finding or trying to realize, uh, what you would do. Yeah, the negative tendency. Because the thing is sometimes, when I was playing under pressure a few years ago, you could rush, but you still hit an ace. You can still hit a good serve when you rush, but it's not. It's not the answer long term right over time. It's not gonna exactly I'm really finding what what you do and what then can bring the most consistent results out so talk, talk about this signal.
Speaker 1so the opponent misses the first serve and then you signal behind your back as the returner's partner. Is this just a stay or poach?
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, so when, like I said, sander likes to watch and try and sort of pick out, avoiding the server's partner. So Neil in this case. So then I'm saying whether I'm going to stay or whether I'm going to poach, okay as a kneel in this case.
Speaker 1So then I'm saying whether I'm going to stay or whether I'm going to poach. Okay, is that something you'll call off if the return is, say, like you know, short or just a little bit weaker return?
Speaker 2yeah, like if it is. If if they hit a really good serve and sander hits a not as good return, for example, I'm I'm not going to cross if we've called cross, then I would unlikely to cross or say, for example, he hit a return that is super wide and and neil was or joe was hitting the the third ball from outside the doubles alley. It doesn't make sense to cross from there. But that I guess you get you gain from playing. Like me and sander have an understanding of when it's going to be called off.
Speaker 1Naturally, right, just team chemistry and experience playing together. So there it was again. He looked like he signaled stay. So he's not telling you where to hit the second return in this scenario, but you've got it like made up in your mind kind of no so on.
Speaker 2So for San, when Sandra's returning I say what move I'm going to do, and when I'm returning, sander says where he wants me to return. That's the difference in our, in our, in our game starts slightly. He has very good intuition at the net, so he likes to not be told, not be sort of be held back by the call, but he'll play off of what he feels once I've hit my return interesting that's.
Speaker 1That's really cool, because I have so many people ask me you know, should I be doing this on second return? Should I be calling poach or should I be calling? And it's, it's just different for each player. Exactly, yeah, we go, we go, different, different for yeah, be calling, and it's, it's just different for each player.
Making Doubles Tennis More Popular
Speaker 2Exactly, yeah, we go, we go. Different, different for yeah, like I said, it's different for sandra I call and it's different for sandra what he calls for me okay, and let's relive the match point real quick. So you went body serve, first serve and then just a backhand error in the net yeah, we went body, yeah, body backhand, and then sort of Sander leaving the line, the line almost open for for Neil to go for. Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1Cool. Well, that was fun. Uh, one last question for you how can we make doubles more popular?
Speaker 2I would say just really marketing the players, marketing the product. I mean there's so many interesting players and different styles of play in the doubles tour and there's a inbuilt sort of storyline with the teams and unfortunately teams do break up and and things like that. So I think it's sort of almost capitalizing on those natural storylines and speaking to more players and letting more players like you're doing a great job with that, um, but I mean just really trying to market more players, get more players out there so that there's more more known, because, like you said in, doubles is a huge thing in in club tennis, um, I know, when I go back to my local club, they I only see people playing doubles really. So it's uh, it's one of those things I think just needs to be put on the map a little bit more and the product is good enough.
Speaker 2I believe the product is good enough, um, and it's exciting and the scoring is exciting with the. The product is good enough and it's exciting and the scoring is exciting with the sudden death juice, the super tie breaks. It can be something that people really get into and I know matches that I've played this year which have been well attended, some of them that the crowd are enjoying it. They enjoy seeing the different things. They enjoy seeing the quick reactions, the things like that yeah, 100.
Speaker 1So hopefully we can continue this and um continue to try to market it better and hopefully the tours will uh follow suit, I guess um thanks a ton luke for uh for coming on.
Speaker 2Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1I appreciate your time any uh final advice or words before we hop off here.
Speaker 2I mean I think I got into tennis and played tennis because I love tennis and I love and I still love it and I still enjoy and I just try and improve every day. So I mean, yeah, just for anyone going at, whatever your level, just try to keep enjoying it. That's the main thing. Tennis is a sport for life.
Speaker 1Awesome. Well, thanks everyone for listening. I'll link to everything in the show notes and I will talk to you all soon.