Doubles Only Tennis Podcast

Volley Training, US Open Semifinal Prep, Match Momentum, & Mixed Doubles with Coach Bruce Lipka

• Will Boucek • Episode 253

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Bruce Lipka, coach of US Open doubles champion Erin Routliffe, joins the show for the second time. I spoke with him before Erin Routliffe and Gaby Dabrowski played their semifinal match in New York.

  • Why preparing for semifinals involves months of work
  • Championship-level doubles requires continuous improvement rather than focusing on winning or losing
  • How they turned around a 0-6 first set in the quarterfinals
  • The compact tournament format creates challenges with mental recovery as players compete multiple days consecutively 
  • Three essential volleys for club players and how to train them
  • Club players' biggest mistakes: not moving enough and taking balls they shouldn't touch
  • Professional margins are incredibly slim
  • "Players don't rise to their level of play; they fall to their level of training."

Have questions about doubles tennis or college tennis? Bruce welcomes inquiries as he also serves as the men's tennis coach at Penn State.

Listen to my previous episode with Bruce.

Learn more about Bruce & follow:

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Meet Coach Bruce Lipka

Speaker 1

You're about to hear another conversation from the US Open, this time with coach Bruce Lipka. Bruce is the coach of Erin Routliff who, alongside Gabby Dabrowski, won the women's doubles title at the US Open. That was their second US Open title in three years, and if Bruce's name sounds familiar it's because I've had him on the podcast before. I'll link to his previous episode in the show notes, which was a lot longer than this one, and I always love chatting with Bruce because he loves double strategy and tactics just as much as I do. So you're going to get some tactical advice, some strategic tips, but you're also going to hear what it's like to be a coach of a US Open winning team.

Preparing for US Open Semifinals

Speaker 1

I spoke with Bruce just before their semifinal match. It was on the day of the match. We talked about what he did to prepare them for that match, which they obviously won. We talked about the matchup specifically against Jasmine Paolini and Sarah Arani. I also talked about the new doubles format the shortened format at the US Open with Bruce. He had some tips for hitting different types of volleys and how you can train those volleys. We also discussed the mixed doubles at the US Open and a lot more. So this is a fun conversation that I know you're going to get a lot out of, whether you are a doubles fan or a club player looking for tips to improve your game. So, without further delay, enjoy this conversation with coach Bruce Lipka. Hey everyone, we're back at the US Open, this time with coach of Aaron Routliff, bruce Lipka. Welcome Bruce, thank you, happy to be here. Will Welcome Bruce, Thank you Happy to be here. Will, glad to have you back on we are. What day is it today?

Speaker 2

Wednesday, wednesday the 400th day of the US.

Speaker 1

Open. I do lose track of my days and how many days I've been here. It all kind of blurs together. You've got the semifinals later today. How do you prepare a player for a big semifinal match like this?

Speaker 2

I think the preparation started a long time ago. Yeah, you know, there's no magic wands, there are no silver bullets. You know, we prepare day in and day out. We do what we're supposed to be doing. You know, for any particular match, we certainly do our homework and we watch film and we put together game plans and we come up with tactical options. You know, I think preparing the player for this is something that's an ongoing process. You know, we always try. Yesterday we were down 5-0 in the first set and Erin was serving at 0-5. And when she came over to the box, all I said was you know, remember, this isn't about winning, losing, this is about getting better. So let's just try to get a little bit better today. Forget about the score, forget about the noise, just let's get better. And uh, you know, sometimes we try to get better. Sometimes it doesn't work out too well. Yesterday we're fortunate that it worked out.

Speaker 1

We just put the focus on the process um, you mentioned, uh, the game planning for individual matches. Today you play the Italians Ferrarani and Jasmine Collini. Without getting into too many specific details, how do you game plan for a team like that, where the two styles of opponents are so kind of contrasting?

Speaker 2

of data, a lot of analytics, you know we go through.

Speaker 2

As the old saying goes, information overload equals pattern recognition. So you watch hours and hours and hours of film and of course we've watched them before and we played them in year-end championship and re-ad last year and if you watch long enough, you see patterns to emerge individually per player and you see patterns start to emerge as a team. And then you make note of the patterns and you, you know we have our basic game plan of what we want to do, what's our identity as a doubles team. And then you know some subtle serve here for serve there, return here versus return there, chip versus drive. You know lob versus loop, you know. So you just it's the basic skill sets we've worked on. You know, it's the options. You know I think at the end of the day the tennis player is only going to be as good as their worst day and on the worst day you're only going to be as good as your options. So we're just trying to have the options available to us, that, whatever direction things go today, we're ready.

Turning Around a 0-6 First Set

Speaker 1

The match yesterday, the first set, did not get well, lost 0-6 and then turned it around you mentioned. At 05. You told aaron, let's try to improve. What else did they do to turn that around, and why was it such a slow start? Was it just an energy thing, or did you have to make some tactical adjustments or something else entirely?

Speaker 2

uh, I think dan kiernan, who coaches gabby, you know he did a fantastic job of putting together some film clips and preparing for the match.

Speaker 2

I think maybe we were a little nervous, possibly, so we weren't really following the game plan. You know, we were supposed to do one thing. We were doing a different thing. I think Dan got their attention after 6-0 really well when we brought him over and we had some words and you know, dan made it clear that we can still do this, you know. I believe his words were I promise you we can do this, you know. And then I think I said something like you know, the door's going to open at some point, but you got to be ready to step through it and Dan was very clear and concise in the instructions and we tried to stay very on point.

Speaker 2

You know doubles is tricky. You know you're talking to two people, not talking to one person. When Carlos goes back there to Juan Carlos Ferrero, there's just one guy he's talking to and you know where his head is. You know, when you have two players, you're not sure where they are. Sometimes the beauty of tennis is, you know, if that was a football game, we would have been down 42 nothing at the end of the first quarter. And I'm just not sure you can come back, you know. Uh, but as a tennis match, the first set's the first set. What does it matter if you lose seven, six or six up, it doesn't even matter if you win it. You know, my contention's always been that the match doesn't even start until someone has a set five and the balls in their hands to serve. The rest is just warm up. Call it what you want, you know so they, you know they put that behind them.

Speaker 2

Gabby had a fantastic hold at one two in the second set, facing several break points. She came up with shot after shot and I think after that game we were alive, we were ready to go. Then we held, they held, we held, they held at 4-all. I think they must have gotten a little tight in the moment because they missed a few overheads, they missed a few balls and then Aaron served the set out and played beautifully. Then, all of a sudden, we broke and got up a break in the third and held on to our break until we got to 5-4. At 5-4 we got to 15-40. Uh, gabby put one ball away at 15-40 and we won the.

Speaker 2

At 30-40, aaron had a second serve and uh, hit one of the best first volleys I've ever seen her hit, exploded with the legs. That's all we talk about is the legs, the, the legs, the legs. She exploded, picked out this volley, buried deep in the corner and then all of a sudden she walked a little taller. You know, all of a sudden I could see the chest out, the chin up, the shoulders back, and I looked at Dan. I said we're going to be okay. And you know, she served out two more points and that was it. But there's, this game is. It's brutal, it's tough, you know. You go into the warm-up, cool-down area after and you know one team is crying hysterically in the arms of their, their uh, important loved ones and the other team is, you know, getting ready to play again the next day. It's, it's. It tells you how mental it is singles um.

Speaker 1

So the format has changed this year. It's a little bit more compact. I think the girls are playing for the fourth day in a row. How has that changed things for you and how does the team prepare differently?

Speaker 2

It's definitely different for a slam, but very similar to a regular tournament. That's a week-long tournament. In a week-long tournament you might play your first round Monday or Tuesday. Then you're going to play mostly every day in a row For a slam. One of the things I think that favors us in the slams and I think the record shows it that since Gabby and Aaron have been together they've never done worse than the quarters at a slam.

Speaker 2

I think what we do well at the slam is prepare. So having that day off gives us that extra preparation day where you know we do the scout, we go to the practice court, we do our thing and then we, you know, do a little bit of what we've got to make sure we're paying attention to the next day. We can kind of bring up some of the elements. Depending on who you play and what country you're in, you might face a certain type of a crowd you know we prepare for that of a crowd. You know we prepare for that, we talk about it. Hey, here's what's going to happen today. It's going to be tough moments or tomorrow.

Speaker 2

So that preparation time is what's lost. I think also the mental recovery time is lost, and that's something that most people maybe don't pay attention to. The physical recovery time for doubles players is not. They're okay and they play a two hour match, it's all right. You serve half the time, you return half the time. It's not so bad physical like singles, but it's the mental recovery time because your nervous system is just turned on every day, multiple days in a row, and if you're not used to that, you fry your nervous system. Then all of a sudden your coordination can be off a little bit, your mindset can wane a little bit from where it really needs to be focused on the optimal thoughts going through your head at the moment. That's probably the biggest thing. We lose a little preparation. However, if we've done our job all year long in preparation, then maybe it's an advantage.

Speaker 2

But that piece of playing day by day by day by day we played Thursday, then at Friday, saturday off, which was strange, you know. I thought we'd play Thursday, saturday, monday, tuesday, wednesday, you know. So we just have gone. This will be the fourth day in a row and you know, at this point it is what it is. You're at a grand slam, you're in the semifinals. You better roll out of bed that morning and realize what day, it is what it is. You're at a grand slam, you're in the semi-finals. You better roll out of bed that morning and realize what day it is and, by the time you get to the port for the match, be ready to go. There's an opportunity in front of you. You know life presents opportunities all the time and try to take advantage of them.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I talked with uh marcello arevalo last year after he had won the french open and he told me that after the tournament he was like sick for two or three days because he thinks his body was like just the mental fatigue and focus you have to sustain for such a long period, so many days in a row, and then all of a sudden his body was just like enough.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I think you, I think your adrenals are running a little high. You know you probably have, like I say, a fried nervous system. And then when everything shuts down at the end of it, when you know the body, the brain rather signals the body and the brain doesn't really know the difference between a lion chasing me through the jungle and I'm serving at 30, 40, you know five, all you know to the brain, the threat's the threat, so the cortisol, everything gets turned on in your nervous system. And I think he's right. I think that's what happened last year. After you know, a couple of big turns for the girls, they get sick, their immune systems are not functioning well, adrenal shut down. I think he hit the nail on the head. That's the very difficult part of this business.

Speaker 1

And especially at the pro level where the margins are so small. I mean, I've seen a number of matches this week where it's just dead even and both teams are just like hanging on, and then one team lets up for literally two points, like 30 seconds, and then it's bad.

Speaker 2

Yeah, our match yesterday. Aaron doesn't come up with this volley at four or five, 30, 40. They break there and it's five all and all of a sudden. Now who knows what's about to happen. But she comes up with one volley which she's worked on for five years. For five years, when we first started, everyone said you can't serve and volley and win in women's doubles. What are you doing? Can't do, it, can't happen, won't work. And so well, if you can volley, you know.

Speaker 2

So we've really worked hard at this and the credit goes to her that she has stayed the course and she second serve, not first serve, behind something good.

Speaker 2

She looped the second serve, kicker in there and came in behind it and, uh to me, absolutely rocketed a return. That was about to hit her, you know, right across the service line in the body, in the feet, and she hit her, you know, right across the service line in the body, in the feet, and she did her training, you know, kicked right in, she stuck a volley deep in the corner, looked like Patrick Rafter himself, and then the girl to me missed the ball wide up the line. That's the margins Slim. There's got to be a word that means smaller than slim Because they're just very and, as you say, it can turn. You know, this other team yesterday looked like they're in complete control and then all of a sudden the whole thing flips on them and our girls. You know, in the no-add format with the 10-pointers you know it's more obvious how quickly things turn and how slim the margins are. But I've come to recognize that in the two out of three regular scoring it's a little better, but it's still. The margins are very slim, very.

Mixed Doubles as Exhibition

Speaker 1

I want to move on to the mix. Did you watch any of the mixed doubles last week?

Speaker 2

Watched a little bit of the early mixed and was disappointed that girls didn't get to play. Former US Open champions, top 10 in the world, former number one this time last year. Aaron, it was an exhibition event, if you want my opinion, because they chose the people. They thought they could fill the stands, but then on the backside of it, I believe a message was sent that we do like doubles, we do like mixed doubles, and I don't think I think the personalities brought them in, but I believe the excitement of the tennis kept them there and I believe they're onto something I think it's.

Speaker 2

It's perhaps an insult to history to hand somebody a final eight club membership or to talk about them as a Grand Slam winner or runner up having won four game sets. It just seems like we're better than that. So I think if we called it an exhibition, I think it was an incredibly successful exhibition. It put mixed doubles, doubles, mixed doubles out there to the world as a wonderful product which we've all known all along. Doubles people that if you'll highlight it and put it out there, people love it.

Three Essential Volleys for Doubles Success

Speaker 1

Yeah, 100%. I want to ask one more thing. So I had you on the podcast. It was last year. It was one of the most popular episodes because of all your instruction and the way you're able to articulate all the different shots and tactics on the doubles court so well. But I remember one of the things you talked about was different types of volleys and you've already touched on this today on Aaron's serve and volley um. On that episode you just reeled off, off the top of your head I think, seven different types of volleys. Let's pick like the three most important types of volleys for club players in your mind and then how would you go about training those? And then we'll close it off from there, because I know you have to go prepare for a semifinal match, sure.

Speaker 2

I would say that you know, if we're going to try to narrow it to three, I would say the three volleys that we talk about are a transition volley, which can be a first volley if you serve in volley, or your first volley when coming to the net, and I think you train the transition volley. All the training, I think, has to happen with targets on the court, because the targets will give you the feedback of where your ball's going. And even if we look back through history, we take a fellow like Patrick Galbraith, who was one in the world in doubles and volleyed in a semi-Western forehand grip. So it doesn't really matter the how, how, as long as it matters that you can get the ball where it needs to go. You know. So if we drill it enough, you know, uh, you have to aim higher to make it go deep. Do you have to have backspin to keep it from flying out? Or, in today's world, so many of the players volley with a grip that's skewed over to the forehand ground stroke that what we really have to do is use sidespin, you know.

Speaker 2

So we develop that transition volley first and foremost as as a way to get to the net. Uh, then we work on the volley if we're already at the net, if we're a club doubles player, we want to work on our movement. And a volley if we're a returners partner or a service partner, either one, you know and both of those start a certain way and then close the ball off. And then I think that the third volley that you work on is what I call the team volley, and the team volley is the volleys that we play with the thought in mind that my primary goal is to protect my partner. So where do I hit the ball? To protect my partner? And then my secondary goal would be to set up my partner, you know. And then the third thing from that might be to try to win the point. Don't believe it's all nonsense.

Speaker 1

Dan disagrees.

Speaker 2

With everything all the time. You know, I think those would probably be the three volleys, Because if I have the ability to transition to the net, if I have the ability to be a good supporting net player, I think the club players, I would tell them the biggest mistake they make is they don't move enough and then they take balls they shouldn't touch. So you know, if I'm the returner's partner, if I don't go forward first and toward the net, I shouldn't touch the ball, particularly from a righty in the deuce court reaching with the backhand. I see club players reach across the service line with a backhand volley all the time. That could be a partner's forehand ground stroke.

Speaker 2

That doesn't make sense. So you know, if we don't work that volley though to get in position to play the volley, whereas if I'm the server's partner, they don't move enough. You're already close enough to the net. If your partner doesn't serve a volley, then just go stand on top of the net. So if they lob you, they lob you Big deal. Partner's there. So ability to transition via server's partner volleyer and a returner's partner volleyer, I think those would probably be the three focuses of attention.

Speaker 1

Yeah, good advice For people listening. Dan Kiernan just walked up and tried to interrupt the podcast.

Speaker 2

They're too mentally tough to allow him to interrupt us.

Speaker 1

It did not mess up Bruce's flow there. Yeah, all good advice there. I mean, I feel like the server's partner volley is one that I try to train people the most on, because it's the one that I feel like club players train the least, perhaps, especially trying to finish that volley, because a lot of the time they hit it back to the baseline player because they don't work on their angle volleys enough.

Speaker 2

I think the addendum to that statement would be if I watched how the club, all the players, practice the volley. You've got to practice the volley in the context you're going to use the volley. You know the ground stroke is a. The ground stroke's a reactive position of the court, the baseline we hit a ground stroke. They hit a ground stroke. We react to their ground stroke. We hit a ground stroke. A baseline we hit a ground stroke. They hit a ground stroke. We react to their ground stroke. We hit a ground stroke. A lot of times we just rally it toward the center. We out-consistent someone.

Speaker 2

So actually what we're doing in practice might hit some cross courts makes some semblance of sense to me. But the volley to stand, how people practice the volley and they don't move the feet, they don't move forward as they volley and they don't close the net off or practice to transition on first or back up for an overhead after they've hit the volley. You know, if we're not practicing it in the context of which it's going to be used, technically or tactically, then how are we expecting it to show up? We could have a variety of strategies to practice that I know. One of the big strategies I see is, you know, uh, cones, perhaps on a diagonal toward the net strap where we have our player, and maybe a line on the ground. Our player starts, makes a move forward, makes a cut on the cone, you know, so we can try to train it. And you know, as the saying goes, people just kind of don't rise to their level of play, they fall to their level of training. So we have to train it enough that they can't do it wrong?

Speaker 1

Yeah, not until they can get it right. Yeah, perfect. Awesome, bruce, this was a ton of fun. Um, we'll do it again in the future and good luck today with the semi-final match.

Speaker 2

Thank you will appreciate your time and thanks for all the listeners out there. And if anyone has any questions about doubles tennis, anything else, college tennis now you know I'm the men's coach at penn state. If there's a lot of folks out there confused about what's going on in college athletics and college tennis, always happy to talk about these things with them awesome thanks.