How to Play Classic Doubles Tennis

Do you play doubles tennis and need to speed up the game? Play classic doubles tennis and speed up the pace of the game while catching your opponent off guard! Here's how to play classic doubles tennis.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Tennis balls
• Tennis racket
• Tennis court
• Doubles partner

1. Assuming you know the rules of tennis, playing doubles tennis is a fun way for two people to partner up and play the game. Classic doubles tennis is a different style of playing regular doubles. Instead of having one player on the baseline hitting groundstrokes and the other at the net hitting volleys, classic doubles tennis gets both players at the net to end points quickly. In classic doubles, the two most important tennis shots are the serve and volley.

2. 
    
   Hit a solid serve

   In order to do this, lets start on serve. We have two players, the server and the netman. The moment the server serves the tennis ball, he/she must follow the serve and run straight up into the net and become a second netman. Playing classic doubles tennis means you want to have two people at the net at any given time.

3. 
    
   Put away that volley!

   It is very important to be aware at this point. By the time the server reaches the net, the return of serve will likely be headed back to you. At this time, both netmen must be in proper volley position and be prepared to put the tennis ball away. In an ideal situation, whichever netman can get to the tennis ball should be able to put it away. Point goes to the service team!

4. 
    
   Its important to have a good serve

   Now, you might think: what if the return is a lob, won't both players be at net and be unable to get a shot back? This is why the serve and volley are so crucial to classic doubles tennis. Having an effective serve (with both spin and power) makes it harder for the returner to get an easy shot back. If you are able to put power and spin on the tennis ball when you serve, it is very difficult to hit a return lob, putting you in a good position to hit a put-away volley for the point.

5. When returning serves, the same concept applies. After the returner hits a return, they should run into the net, ready to hit a put-away volley. In this case, the most important shot is the groundstroke return. A solid forehand or backhand return again makes it difficult for your opponent to hit a lob or hard shot. This allows you to hit a solid volley for the point. Now that you know how to play classic doubles tennis... go out and try it!

Tips & Warnings

• Communication with your tennis partner is very important! For example, if you are both at the net and a lob goes over both of your heads, it is crucial that you communicate with each other (like yelling "I got it!"). This way, there is still one netman awaiting a shot, ready to put the ball away.
• Practice your serves and volleys! These are the most important shots in classic doubles tennis.
• To practice tennis volleys, just take a ball and bounce it against a wall using proper forehand or backhand volley form.

Resources

• How to Hit a Faster Tennis Serve
• How to Chip and Charge in Tennis
• How to Return a Fast Serve in Tennis
• How to Hit a Kick Serve in Tennis
• How to Effectively Cover More Court in Tennis

[NightowlMama]

on 7/12/2009 sounds like fun thanks

[greyfox271]

on 7/5/2009 Works great!