As you develop your doubles skills, you will need to begin to identify doubles play styles. As I begin to lay out the many different styles there are, you will be able to see where your game fits in. Your game style will be determined by what your strengths and weakness are. The more you begin to improve your tennis skills and develop your doubles patterns, the more styles you will be able to add to your repertoire. The most important part of identifying play styles is that you will be able to identify the style that your opponents use and make changes your style to be able to defeat them.

Let’s begin to classify styles.

Serve and Volley

Everyone says the best tactic in doubles is to serve and volley. If you have the skills to be able to accomplish this tactic then that is probably true. Skills needed to make this your tactic are an effective serve and the ability to make a low, transitional volley. Other good skills to have the close to close and deep to deep pattern mastered and a strong overhead will help as well. Using the serve and volley tactic will put you in a position to take the offense in a point and be able to put the ball away. The best way to counter the serve and volley is low return of serves to the attacker’s feet and effective use of a lob.

Serve and Stay Back

This tactic is probably the most common serving tactic in club level doubles. People have a tendency to feel more comfortable serving and recovering behind the baseline to play the point. There will be two different classifications in this style. The first will be a person who stays back and looks to get a short ball to attack on. This player is usually comfortable with his/her volleying skills but not comfortable enough with the transitional volley or may have a weaker serve, especially a second serve and stay back to defend against a strong return. The other classification will be the baseliner. This person is not comfortable at the net and would rather stay back and use consistency and some placement to beat you. You will find that the baseliner when given a short ball will move up to hit it and then retreat back to the baseline. You can recognize these players during warm up when they take little or no warm up at the net.

Return and Charge

There are two different methods of return and charge; chip and charge or crush and rush. Chip and charge utilizes a slice return of serve that you will follow in to the net. This is very effective against a serve and volley player because the return stays low and forces the server’s first volley to have to be hit up. Crush and Rush on the other hand has the returner hit a full swinging flat or topspin return and follow it in to the net. This is mostly effective against a serve and stay back opponent. It will put them back on their heels and force them to hit a defensive shot up to an approaching player. Skills needed to accomplish this style are a solid return of serve, whether it is a slice or drive, and a good transitional volley. Having your close to close and deep to deep patterns mastered will help.

Return and Stay Back

This style is very similar to serve and stay back style on the return of serve games. Serve and stay back players will mostly have a tendency to be return and stay back players as well. Again there are two different classifications of return and stay back players, players who stay back and look to approach on a short ball and baseliners that when they get a short ball they will hit it and retreat back to the baseline.

The Lobber

The lobber is the one who can split the baseline with a lob on a consistent basis. These players will almost always fall into the serve and stay back category as well as the return and stay back category. Most all lobbers are not comfortable at the net and most of the time are not able to truly drive a ball past you either. Lobbers skills lie mostly in hitting over net players heads and looping shots to a baseliner. They are also one of the most consistent players you will run into.

The Dropshotter

The drop shot player usually starts to show up in the senior levels of the USTA league matches. They are called “crafty” because they pick and choose their shots wisely. Obviously the skills needed to become a dropshotter are very affective drop shot. Many time lobbing skills will come together with this player and make an all around frustrating opponent.

Double Back Team

These teams begin in the both back on the baseline. This can happen when either serving or returning. Teams that play this style will either be baseliners or lobbers. You will find out right away which is which because of there shot selection. Lobbers, as explained above, will loop balls in to the court with little pace, where baseliners will try to drive the ball past or maybe through the net playing team.

Putting It All Together

Tennis is like a game of rock, paper and scissors. Rock defeats scissors but not paper. Paper defeats rock but not scissors. Scissors defeats paper but not rock. Tennis tactics are going to work in the same way.

A serve and volley or return and volley team will be better able to handle a serve and stay back or return and stay back team. The attacking team will be able to put pressure on the baseline player to hit a great shot. Any thing less than a great shot, the volleying team will have a close player to target for the close to close put away.

A serve and stay back or return and stay back team will have an advantage over a double back lobbing team. They will use there net player as a “spy” and allow them the freedom to float around the net area and look for short lobs or floating balls to put away. They also have a deep player to run down lobs over the net player and keep it in play until the double back team makes a mistake.

The double back lobbing team has the advantage over a serve and volley or return and volley team. Because both players are back on the baseline, they have taken away the attacking teams put away target, the close player. On top of that they are using the best shot, the lob to neutralize the attacking team.

Think about what style of play you have and how you fit in to each of these categories. Begin to use your strengths to exploit your opponent’s weaknesses through play style. Furthermore, try playing styles you are not used to playing and get familiar with how to do each. While it may not be your primary tactic, if you are down a set and down in the second set, it might be time to change and try something new.

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