Are you ready to transform your net play in doubles tennis? Join us for an insightful conversation with Karen Rembert, a veteran teaching professional with over three decades of coaching experience. Karen shares her wisdom on the crucial role of self-talk and confidence in becoming a dominant net player.

Karen was a National USTA Finalist in 45 Doubles, a two-time NC State 25 Doubles Champion, and ranked #11 nationally in NAIA Doubles.

If you would like to learn more about her camp please check out her facebook page at Costa Rica All Inclusive Tennis Vacations,  email her at kr.crdg@gmail.com, or listen to our episode: The Ultimate Tennis Vacation.

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Here’s a Transcript of our Conversation with Karen

Improving Net Play in Doubles

Carolyn 0:09
Hi, this is Carolyn and I’m here with Erin, and we really appreciate Karen Rembert being back on the show. Karen has been a teaching pro for over 30 years and played in college. We’ve had two other episodes with Karen where she discusses tiebreak strategy and mental tips for tiebreaks, and her best advice for levels 2.5 to 4.0. But in this episode, Karen gives us a few pieces of advice on net play, which is really helpful. So here it is.

Erin 0:34
So let’s talk about net play, which Karen, watching me play, knows is not my favorite, but I want to be a good net player. What did you tell me? You always say it’s back to the self-talk topic: “I’m the best net player there is.”

Karen 0:51
Exactly. I had to do that in college. I got to college and my net game wasn’t up to par, and my college coach was really pressing me to get up to the net. So I’d hit a winner and I’d turn to my girls and say, “World’s greatest volleyer.” That’s just self-talk. But I do believe a lot of it is how you were trained and your personality type. And again, we’re not six foot three with a huge wingspan and speed. If you’re comfortable at the baseline, then you just need to be good at the baseline. You need to know your responsibilities as a baseliner. You can’t make a ton of unforced errors. You need to hit the ball deep. You need to be able to lob. You need to be able to set your partner up at the net. But when you do those things and your partner is in control of the net, you need to get to the party. You don’t need to wait for an invitation. You need to find your way in. So my two thoughts are: don’t wait for that invitation to get to the party, and be up there to high-five your partner when she hits a winner. I tend to play the baseline more. I like the baseline, but I know what my job is. And when I set my partner up, I can’t stand back there and admire my handiwork. I need to get up there. There’s a lot of garbage that comes back, right? My partner gets a really good ball and they barely get their racket on it, and I need to be up there for that garbage. I don’t want them to dribble the ball over the net while I’m back on the baseline taking a cigarette break. I need to be up there with them. It doesn’t mean I need to crash the net. If my partner’s hitting an overhead or they get a high volley and they feel like they’re in control, I can at least get to the service line and be ready for any junk that comes back.

Erin 2:48
Yeah. I want to take one step back and say that Karen’s philosophy, or the words she uses, when she wants you to get to the net, is “come to the party.” I told Carolyn that, and Carolyn said, “Oh, I’m a party crasher.” Carolyn likes to just come in because she doesn’t want to be on the baseline. So she’s like, “Hit a ball, party time.”

Karen 3:07
I like it.

Erin 3:08
I like it. Yeah.

Karen 3:09
And again, that’s her personality type too, right? That’s where she’s most comfortable. So if I’m playing with her, as a baseliner, I’m super happy to see that.

Erin 3:19
Oh, she’s my favorite partner. She’s my favorite net partner by far. So, this is a good question. Should I not leave the party, but just be in the background of the party? Should I come back to the service line? If she’s hitting the ball and going in, I might have to cover certain things, although she’s very good at covering if someone lobs over her.

Karen 3:42
I think that’s really situational. You do tend to see the baseliners want to try and sneak out there. But we have to remember the pressure of both players being up at the net. It makes the other team have to come up with good shots. And if you’re playing an equal team that you’ve just been battling tiebreakers with, you’ve got to be okay with not winning every point at the net. A lot of times somebody will say, “Oh, I crashed too much, I come in too much.” But they’re not taking into account all the forced errors. You might have crashed the party two points before, and they had a lob that went long and a ball that went into the bottom of the net. Then the third ball, you might have missed that volley, and you’re going, “Oh, I shouldn’t have been up there.” No. You’re winning 66% of your points, but we think, “Because I missed that volley, I shouldn’t have been up there.” But we all know that in good doubles, we need to get to the net. I think in the women’s game the difference is that our height, our speed and our reach are less. So if you’re playing a good lob team, or a team that passes well, you can win from the baseline for sure. If you’re watching the women’s doubles at the French Open, they’re having a lot of baseline rallies, and if you notice, those girls are doing all the work. So if you’re not going to be crashing the net, you’ve got to be willing to do a lot of work. In college, my doubles partner was very good at the net. I would be back on the baseline, and I’d hit 20 balls. I’d lob, I’d drop, I’d pull, and I’d set it up. And my partner, Susan, would put the ball away and the crowd would go crazy for Susan. I’m like, “You did all the work. What’s going on here?” She turned to me one day and she goes, “You are the wind beneath my wings.” I was like, “Well, I’m so happy to be the wind beneath your wings.” Because the crowd doesn’t know that this bird is exhausted. I’ve been running back and forth, back and forth.

Erin 5:42
So what I actually do, because I love the baseline, is tell my net person, “I’ll do all the work back here. I’m going to set you up.” I know my job is to set them up. I should get more used to coming into the net too, because you don’t want to be there hitting 20 balls. But I do often say, because I don’t want to be the one at the net, “I’ll be back here all day for you. You don’t have to take a swing until I set you up for the perfect one.” And even if they hit it out, I’m like, “Oh, no big deal, we’ll get the next one.” But I need to change my philosophy. I need to be consistent, because I’m the quote-unquote baseliner, but I also need to get invited to the party. I know the only way for me to get better at my game is to do that.

Karen 6:24
Right. There are a lot of things I could get better at, too. We talked about this the other day when we were playing for fun. We were like, “All right, this point, second serve, you have to go in, you don’t have a choice,” or “at least one point you have to serve and volley.” Now that it’s doubles, I know there’s Tri-Level and singles league, but there seems to be a little more time for some fun play, practice with a purpose. I think all of us can do it, but when we get in that comfort zone of “I know I can win the point back here,” now you’re asking me to take a risk and come to the net. We need to get out of our comfort zone to be better doubles players, because there are teams that you need to crash the net on. They might not hit the ball hard, or they might hit that little loopy ball that would be a perfect ball to take out of the air. And I think baseliners shouldn’t forget about the swinging volley. The swinging volley is basically a groundie out of the air, so you’re coming into mid-court and not getting pushed back to the fence. That’s my jam.

Erin 7:35
Because I get to hit hard and hit from the baseline.

Carolyn 7:38
But the swinging volley is also hard, Karen.

Erin 7:40
It is, yeah. But also you have to practice with a purpose.

Carolyn 7:43
Yeah, practice with a purpose. Get better at it, right?

Karen 7:46
Right. And not be afraid of it too. I think the thing is not to beat yourself up. Carolyn probably thinks, “Man, I wish I could stay back on the baseline and hit more groundies,” and you’re thinking, “Oh, I wish I could crash the net more.”

Carolyn 8:02
Yeah.

Karen 8:02
There are just so many ways to win doubles matches, right? Be comfortable with that. But it doesn’t mean you don’t still need to practice the shots that you’re not good at. When you’re going to drills and clinic, you don’t want to win clinic. You want to practice the things you’re not good at. I think when we’re playing points in clinic, we want to win clinic, so we’re like, “Well, I can just stay back here and win.” Instead, go practice some things that you’re not comfortable doing.

Carolyn 8:30
Okay, so we’re talking about playing at the net, and that you should get to the net. What do you mean by “play big”?

Karen 8:38
So this is probably directed more to the women. You should be very active. If you’re not poaching, you’re faking a poach and being a distraction. I heard a great thing the other day called “be a DAD body,” and that is distract, attack, and defend. And my husband said he’s got the dad body down, which is true. The other part of that is that playing big means don’t be a shrinking violet. Don’t guard your alley because you got burned once in the second game of the first set. As we know, most balls are going down the middle of the court. So if you’re going to play big, you need to be out there looking to cut those balls off. For women, playing big is also playing tall. I’ll see women letting lobs that have landed on the service line go over their head, shouting “yours” to their partner and switching. Whether it’s two or three shuffle steps or actually turning and running, you need to be able to cover most of your side with that lob. When I see ladies and the lob goes up and their first move is out of their mouth and not turning their body, I know they’re in trouble. If their first move is “yours,” I know I can get away with hitting weak lobs. I remember growing up here in Raleigh playing with a lady, and it was ironic, her name was Sue Little, and she was about four foot eleven, but she played like she was six foot eleven. She was just really good at turning and going back. Even if she wasn’t hitting a full overhead, she was going back and at least hitting a bump lob volley back, so her partner wasn’t having to go behind her and getting the team discombobulated. And it forces your opponent to hit better lobs too. When I played her, I knew I had to hit a good lob to get over her head, and it was almost impossible. It was a really good lesson for me: this woman is not a physical presence, but she is definitely playing big. She stays with the ball, and it’s not speed related, it’s turning and being able to move. And I think that at 2.5 and 3.0, we’re still worried about that one shot that goes down the line. At all levels, we’re worried about that shot. It feels so humiliating when you get passed down the line. But for me, whether I’m standing still or moving, if they hit a good shot, they hit a good shot. And they’re not doing that three out of four times when they’re returning. They’re going cross court most of the time. You might see one down the line every two or three games. So it doesn’t make sense percentage-wise for us to be worried about the alley. We also know that we need to stand in the center of the box when our partner’s serving, and I can tell those shrinking violets want to be near the alley, kind of out of the way and not making a presence.

Erin 12:12
I see that a lot at 4.0, actually. I see people almost move into the alley, and I’m like, I’m never going to take that shot. It’s rare for me to take it, just because I usually hit flatter balls, but I’m shocked when someone gives me, especially as a hard hitter, an extra quarter of the court to hit. Why are they covering their alley?

Carolyn 12:34
But it is also hard, because I’ve had my teammate say to me, “Watch your line.” I got beat down the line, and I’ve had teammates say, “Hey, hold the line, watch that line,” after I already got beat. And then it makes you kind of worry about being aggressive.

Erin 12:50
Yeah, she’s actually had a teammate literally tell her, “Hold your line, hold your line.” And that partner in particular is a super steady baseliner, but that’s not the right philosophy for Carolyn. Carolyn should get in there and crash that net, or be invited to the party, and put the ball away. Don’t listen to that partner, Carolyn.

Karen 13:09
Carolyn, don’t listen to that partner. Get a new partner. The answer to that is, and I know Carolyn, you might not like the math on this, and Erin’s heard me talk about this: when I’m playing doubles and I get passed down the line, I have almost a file cabinet in my head. If Emily passes me down the line, I say, “Okay, she’s one for one.” If she misses the next one, she’s one for two. Then if my partner tells me to watch the line, I can say, “Well, she’s at 50%, and we’re deep into the second set, so I’m going to let her have the line.” And if my partner is right, I say, “You’re right, I’ve been passed five out of six times. I need to watch my line.” Knowing that really helps you justify why you’re moving to the middle. Emily hit three great balls down the line, but she missed ten. She can have the line. That’s hers. She can keep going for it all day, because I’m going to beat her if she does.

Carolyn 14:19
Thanks again to Karen for coming on the podcast. We’ve included more information about Karen’s camp in Costa Rica in our show notes. We hope you check out our website, which is secondservepodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening, and we hope to see you on the courts soon.