4 smart strategies to improve your doubles game in tennis

Playing doubles tennis is a whole different ball game than singles. Learning to play well with a partner requires smart strategies. Put these four tips to use and you’ll be sure to improve your doubles game.

The Australian formation is a popular doubles tactic that’s used by some of the world's top players. To implement it in your game, both the server and their partner should stand on the same side of the court.

During a serve, the person playing net crouches down to get out of the way. After the serve has been hit, the net player is in the perfect position to pop up and put away the return shot as a volley or overhead.

Hand signals are a good way for doubles partners to communicate with each other about what they're going to do. Rather than talk between every point, use hand signals so that you and your partners can talk during play.

A good example involves the net player indicating to the server that they're going to poach the return shot. In this way the server knows their partner will be covering both sides of the court to hit a volley.

Playing two back in a doubles match involves both players standing at the baseline. It’s not a common doubles strategy, but it can be very effective if you and your partner are strongest at the baseline and don’t have a good net game.

It can also be an effective strategy against a team who’s very weak at the net. Playing two back makes it easier for players to cover the entire range of the court.

The lob is a shot that’s hit high and deep in a court. It's not always a good strategy to use a lob in doubles. However, it can be a good shot if the net player struggles with overheads, or the baseline player is not very consistent.

If either of these is the case, start lobbing on the third shot of the point, which is when many people believe the point actually starts. Continue to lob to the baseline player until you have an opportunity to run into the net and volley or hit an overhead to put the ball away.

Give these four doubles strategies a go and chances are you and your partner will see more success on the tennis court in no time.