I got it! I got it! Back! Back! Communication is super vital in doubles. Tennis is a very team-centered sport and doubles is even more team-centered. The communication between you and your teammate is super crucial. In a normal high school match, you have six singles matches and three doubles. Those three doubles matched can be the deciders. It has happened to me before when we lost three out of the six singles matches and that meant the doubles teams had to clutch it up. We did it again and split the first two doubles matches and that meant Zaman Shah and I had to clutch the game and we did so 0-6, 6-4, 11-8 in incredible fashion. Doubles is a really fun part of tennis and there are things that you have to have to be good at it; trust, communication, skills about doubles.
Trust is very hard to build and can be gone in the blink of an eye. In doubles, you need to build that trust with a teammate and that trust can't break because they messed a couple of things up. If you don't have trust in your partner, that he will not see you up to get crushed by the other team then you will not be a good doubles team. You have to have trust in your teammate and make sure he has it back. I had trust in every single one of Zaman's calls in that comeback game. If I didn't have that trust and he didn't trust me back we wouldn't have won that game. You have to build that trust with your teammate to make a good doubles team.
Communication is a very vital thing in any sport. Doubles is no different, you have to have great communication skills with your partner to make sure that you both know what you have to do on the point, whether it is cut across or rush the net. If you don't communicate with your teammate both of you can do the same thing and lose the point. To be effective at tennis you have to create a sense of communication and make sure that you leave all of the drama off of the court. Before each point, you have to talk about what you guys are going to do and how you will execute the plan. Zaman Shan and I have hand signals and many formations to pay in and that is how we know what to do. During warmups, we talk to each other about how we are feeling and how the other team is hitting. That communication is how we know how to play that match and what to do. Communication is very much needed to play doubles in tennis.
There are a set of skills you have to have to play tennis. A serve is something that is very much needed because you need to serve in the right spot each time so you make the point easy sets you partner up for success. Plays and formations are also something that you can mess around with like Australian and the I-formation. Those are things that you only do if you are confident enough with executing them. If not you stick to the normal formation or the double back-formation.
Hand signals are also something that most tennis doubles teams use. They use them to show where the partner up at the net will be moving. Most of the teams that use signals, first show where they want their teammate to serve and then show where they will be moving. Hand signals are very nice to use and it makes communication a whole lot easier.
Communication, trust and having the right skills can make you a very effective tennis player. If you are good at doubles it will make it a whole not easier and more fun. The pressure and how you play it off can decide a very important match. Doubles can be a really fun sport to play if you get to know how to play it effectively.
