Doubles Only Tennis Podcast

4 Lessons from Wimbledon: Pre-Match Practice, Baseline Matchups, & More

• Will Boucek • Episode 244

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I watched a lot of Wimbledon doubles over the past few weeks. In this episode, I share 4 strategy lessons from the Championships. Watching professional doubles can help you learn new tactics, positioning, movement, and strategy that you can apply to your own game.

  • Practice specific shots to counter your upcoming opponents' preferred tactics, as demonstrated by Wimbledon Champions, Elise Mertens & Veronika Kudermetova.
  • When you have the baseline advantage, stay patient and consistent.
  • At the net, moving first often wins.
  • The importance of dedicated serve and return practice, including a serve game you can play against yourself.

I'm co-hosting two US Open experiences, including a doubles camp (August 30-31) and an all-inclusive luxury vacation (September 2-4). Learn more and sign up for each below.

Check out memberships at thetennistribe.com/memberships to access premium content and improve your doubles game.

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Four Lessons from Wimbledon

Speaker 1

Today I'm going to share four lessons from Wimbledon that I noticed watching the championships over the last couple of weeks. I watched a lot of doubles in the morning here, my time in the US Hopefully you got to watch a lot of it as well and I've always talked about how we can learn. We talked about watching pro players in between the points to notice how they are communicating with each other, how they're giving each other high fives, the different routines that they have in between points. But today I'm going to share four lessons that I learned from Wimbledon, with specific match examples. So we're going to talk about baseline matchups. We're going to talk about baseline matchups. We're going to talk about moving at the net, serves and returns and a few other things as well. Before I get to the lessons, a couple of quick announcements. So number one I will be in New York for the US Open and there are two chances for you to come, hang out and learn some doubles strategy. So number one is our doubles camp. It is going to be August 30th and 31st. I did this last year with a company based in New York called Add In and we're doing it again. It was very popular last year. This year we're consolidating it into two days, but each day is going to be a bit longer than last year. It into two days, but each day is going to be a bit longer than last year. My goal with this camp, basically, is for you to walk away with a very clear idea of the best tactics and strategy for your current game and then also a very clear idea of the things that you need to work on, including specific drills that you can practice to keep developing your game. And then the second opportunity to hang out is new this year. So I've partnered with a Dallas-based company that provides luxury, all-inclusive travel trips, and we're calling this a rally trip. So it's a three-day, two-night US Open experience. You're going to stay in a hotel, a luxury hotel in Manhattan. You get US Open tickets included. You get to play tennis for two days. One of those days I'll be there helping out with some drills and running a clinic of sorts. I'll also be doing a double strategy presentation during one of the hotel happy hours that you'll get to attend, and then you'll also get to watch some doubles at the US Open with me so that we can learn from some of the pros. So it's going to be a really fun couple of days. That's September 2nd through 4th, so that is during week two or the final week of the US Open. If you're interested in either one, I'll link to them both in the show notes or you can always email me if you have questions about it as well.

Speaker 1

A couple of quick membership updates. So I mentioned I had a webinar last night. We talked about teamwork. We had several people on there with lots of good questions, so that was great.

Lesson 1: Practicing for Specific Opponents

Speaker 1

But we're also going to be having the premium podcast episodes soon. So what those are going to look like and this is for free or for non-members and members. So it's going to be episodes very similar to this, where it's me talking about strategy and what I'm going to do is release part of the episode for free for anybody with the free podcast feed, but then members are going to have access to a premium podcast feed and that's where you'll be able to hear the full episode where I'll be diving deep into different strategy topics, answering member questions, different things like that. So it's going to be a really great added benefit for members who like to learn on the go if you're driving to work or walking your dog or exercising or whatever it is. Recently we've had several premium lessons on the returners partner when should you take the ball out of the air was another lesson that got some good feedback. And then I also broke down a WTA point that covered a very specific shot that is effective at the club level. So you can check out the memberships at thetennistribecom, slash memberships and sign up there and see all of the member benefits as well. So let's dive into these lessons. We've got four lessons for you. The first one is about practicing for specific opponents.

Speaker 1

So I was watching a quarterfinal matchup between the eventual champions, elise Mertens and Veronica Kudermatova. They beat Gabby Dabrowski and Aaron Ratliff, I think it was in the quarterfinals. The score was 7-5, 7-6, I believe, and I flipped it on in the second set, and I mentioned this in the newsletter a few weeks ago, but I wanted to talk about it here on the podcast as well. So one of the things that Gabby and Aaron like to do and they're maybe the best team in the world at this is both get to the net.

Speaker 1

A lot of the women's doubles teams on the WTA Tour play one up one back. Gabby and Aaron are probably the most net dominant team, and when they both get to the net they squeeze the middle, because that's generally a good strategy. Usually, if you have a baseline ground stroke and both opponents are at the net, you want to hit through the middle to try to draw an error or a short ball or cause some kind of miscommunication. But Elise and Veronica knew this going into the match. Now I'm going to kind of speculate here, but I imagine this is how it kind of played out. So they know that they draw Dabrowski and Ratliff in the next round.

Lesson 2: Baseline Matchup Strategy

Speaker 1

So in practice, if you're practicing for a team like that, knowing you're going to have ground strokes from the baseline against two players who are at the net, who cover a lot of ground and who like to squeeze the middle, one good shot you can practice is a cross-court angle roll and when I flipped it on in the second set I noticed Gabby and Aaron getting to the net and then Elise and Veronica would both hit these low, slow kind of cross-court topspin angles and a few of them went for winners. A few of them they drew a weak volley which led to a short ball which led to a winner, and then a few of them led to volley errors from Gabby and Aaron. So this was a really smart shot to use. Now I don't know for sure if they practiced it, but the lesson here for you is if you're playing a opponent that you know likes to play a certain style or use a particular tactic or get to a specific spot on the court, then in your pre-match warm-up, practice the shots that counter that. So if I'm playing Gabby and Aaron, I'm obviously going to lose the match, but if I was, I would work on these cross-court angle rolls before the match, and Veronica and Elise may have done that I don't know that for sure, obviously, but that would have been a good shot for them to work on, and even if they didn't, they certainly utilized it in the match. And what that did is Gabby and Aaron had to adjust and they started to play a little bit more spread out when they both got to the net and that opened up the middle, and then Veronica and Elise were able to target the middle a bit more. So it's kind of an adjustment counter adjustment, a game of cat and mouse where they're constantly tweaking their strategy and their tactics based on how the other team is tweaking theirs. So, again, the key takeaway there practice specific shots and tactics that you know you're going to use in the very next match. Practice it the day before, practice it in your warmup. Really work on those shots. So let's move on to lesson number two.

Speaker 1

This was I think it was another quarterfinal match. It was Shaysu Wei and Helena Ostapenko against Kalinskaya and Kirsteja. Kalinskaya and Kirsteja won the first set. They end up losing the match in three. The thing I noticed in the second and third set was Kalinskaya was redirecting, and Kristea did this a bit too, but Kalinskaya particularly.

Speaker 1

She would get in a baseline rally with Shea Sui, and that's a good matchup. So Kalinskaya is a top 30-ish singles player. Shea Sui is probably past her prime, certainly for singles she is. So you would favor Kalinskaya in that matchup. So what Kalinskaya would do is she would hit a few balls with Shesu Wei and then she would try to redirect down the line at Ostapenko, because Ostapenko is not the strongest net player, or she would try to lob down the line, or she would try to go a little bit bigger.

Speaker 1

But she's thinking about that the wrong way. If you are the better baseline player and you're in a rally, you have a good matchup. You don't need to prove that you have a good matchup by trying to hit a winner or trying to force an error. It's actually the opposite. The opponent, shaysu Wei, needs to be the one that comes up with something special, because Kalinskaya can sit in that rally all day. She hits a bigger ball, she hits a heavier ball, she's more consistent, she plays more singles nowadays, so she needs to just stay in the rally and let Shaisu Wei change direction or come up with something good. And what ended up happening was Kalinskaya would redirect and she'd either miss a shot down the line or she'd give Ostapenko a volley, or maybe she'd try to lob down the line and miss, or go bigger across court and miss. She allowed Shaysu way to not have to stay in the rally.

Lesson 3: Moving First at Net

Speaker 1

So think about that when you're on the court. If you are good from the baseline, or if your partner is good from the baseline, you can kind of coach them a little bit on this. If you're in a good baseline to baseline matchup, you don't need to do anything special. It's up to the opponent to show that they can hang with you from the baseline. It's up to them to do something special. Let them create something you don't need to, and ultimately, what will mostly happen is they're going to be forced to go at your net player or they're going to make an error because you're the more consistent, more solid, better overall baseline player. So that's a really important lesson about playing from the baseline.

Speaker 1

Lesson number three this is about movement at the net. So moving first, the finals. I watched on the women's finals. I watched on Sunday. So Shaysuwe and Ostapenko won the first set. Elise Mertens and Kudermatova won the second and third set. They are your champions. And what I noticed, especially in the third set, is, even though she doesn't have the best volleys on the court, veronica Kudermatova was the best net player on the court, and that is a court that has Shaysuwe, who is one of the best net players in the world.

Lesson 4: Serves and Returns Win Matches

Speaker 1

For that particular set, she was moving first, so Ostapenko and Mertens would get in a baseline exchange and Shaisu Wei. For whatever reason I don't know if that was maybe part of the game plan where they felt like Ostapenko can win that cross-court matchup and they weren't expecting Kudermatova to move, or maybe Shaisuwe was hesitant for some other reason. I really don't know but Veronica Kudermatova was moving first at the net during their partner's baseline exchanges and that ultimately won them the match. She didn't make every volley. Not every volley was clean. I think she even hit a few off her frame that went in for winners, but she moved first. So this is kind of the opposite of the previous lesson about the baseline matchup. You know from the baseline we don't want to be the first one to redirect and change something up, especially if you are favored in that baseline matchup. But when you're at the net you want to be the one that moves first, especially if the opposing net player is pretty aggressive as well. So there's a lot of variables here. But I noticed in that match Kudermitova moved first, even though she wasn't or isn't as good of a net player, doesn't have as good a hands as Shaysu Wei. Moving first ultimately won them the Wimbledon title. And then the last lesson.

Speaker 1

Let's move over to the men's side. The champions were Lloyd Glasspool and Julian Cash, who I had on the podcast recently. It was certainly one of my favorite recent podcast episodes, so I would highly recommend you check that out. He had a lot of good mindset and partnership tips as well.

Speaker 1

But this came down to serves and returns. Cash and Glasspool, you know and Julian talked about this in the podcast they have two of the biggest serves on the doubles tour and on grass it becomes even more difficult to break serve. So that ultimately won out and it's something that you know. I've reiterated this in the past. I'm going to talk about it again. It's something we don't practice enough as club level players. Now this depends on your goals. If your goal is to play social tennis and just have fun and you're not that worried about winning, then serves and returns can be kind of boring. But if you're listening to the podcast, especially this far into this episode, then you probably want to win matches. And if you want to win matches, you've got to practice your serves and returns.

Speaker 1

Rinki Hijikata and David Pell were the second alternate team into the Wimbledon draw. They made it all the way to the finals and their returns were one of the things that really got them through a lot of those matches. They both returned really well. When Rinky is returning well in particular, he's able to hit all the spots on the court with his return. He can rip line, he can go short angle cross, he can go through the middle, he has a lob return. And then David Pell had a huge down the line return in their semifinal match against the top seeds and you could tell that they had worked on those returns and it paid off.

Speaker 1

So I'm going to give you a serve game that you can play that I've started teaching to people recently. I learned this is a variation of a serve game. I learned from Craig O'Shaughnessy. Basically, how this works is you're playing a serve game against yourself, and this is a great way to work on your serve. So you grab a basket of balls, you go back to the baseline, you step up to the deuce court. You win a point by making a first or second serve. So if you make the serve, you're up 15 love. You lose a point by either double faulting which a lot of times I'll count for two points actually I'd recommend you do that, you don't have to, it depends on your skill level or if you miss two first serves in a row, you lose the point.

Speaker 1

So let's say I'm in the deuce court, I miss my first serve, I make my second serve, I made the second serve, I'm up 15 love. I moved to the ad court. Again, there's nobody returning here, it's just me, my basket of balls and the tennis court. That's it. So that's the great thing about this game. I'm in the ad court, I'm up, 15 love. I miss my first serve. Now it's 15 all. But I have to hit a second serve because if I double fall then it's 1530. It's worth two points. Let's say I make my second serve. Okay, I've missed two first serves in a row, so that means I lost that point. So now we're back to the deuce court and it's 15 all. Now if I continue to miss first serves, I will still lose that point. That's how I like to keep it.

Speaker 1

So this does a really good job of helping you recognize when you're missing consecutive first serves in a row. A lot of times on the court we don't notice in those service games that we've missed two or three first serves in a row and we let it kind of spiral and that's a lot of the time the games that we get broken. So it's a really fun game you can play. Well, maybe I shouldn't say fun, but it's a really effective game. You can play against yourself to help improve your focus and add a little bit of pressure, and you can play a full set this way. So you can play all the way to six. It'll take a little bit of time and it's not super easy. If you find it getting a little bit easier, you can start to use targets so you can divide the service box up into the left half and right half and call your spot on your first and second serve and you have to hit the target or else you lose the point. And then you can divide it up into thirds or even fourths if you're a high level, maybe a pro player, so there's variations of it you can do, but you're basically playing a serve game against yourself and it's a great way to add a little bit of pressure and really work on your serve returns.

Episode Wrap-Up

Speaker 1

There's no specific game that I have for you, but you've got to be practicing your returns. I will say practice. You know, if you're a club level player, practice your returns primarily cross court, at least 80%. I would definitely practice the lob return against first serve and then down the line is kind of a secondary pattern that you might do as well. But hopefully this gave you a few things to think about before your next match, before your next practice. Lots to kind of digest there and, if you liked this episode, there's going to be more of these coming with the premium podcast feed for members, so I would really appreciate if you would check out the memberships if you're not already a member. If you are, I appreciate your support and I will talk to you all soon.