Listen to how McKenzie (NTRP 3.5) and Rachel (NTRP 4.0) use signals and positivity to win matches and enjoy the game. Their strategy secrets may help transform your tennis game!

Here’s a Complete Transcript of our Conversation:

Doubles Strategy with McKenzie and Rachel

Carolyn 0:06
Hi, this is Carolyn and I’m here with Erin, and we are excited to have McKenzie and Rachel on the podcast to discuss doubles strategy. We had Gigi Fernandez on the podcast previously, who is a 17-time Grand Slam champion, and she also coaches rec players. She said even rec players should have a strategy and be running plays and doing planned switches. But I hadn’t seen very many people do this until I played Rachel and McKenzie. McKenzie is a 3.5 and Rachel is a 4.0, and they beat me at the 4.0 level. So using signals and strategy worked for them, and I asked if they would come on the podcast to discuss it. First, can you guys tell us a little about your tennis background? McKenzie, can you start?

McKenzie 0:53
Yes, absolutely. I started playing in my late 30s, really mid-30s, taking a few lessons and immediately falling in love with the game. Then, before I was really able to sink my teeth in, I got married and had children and took a little break, and then returned to the court a little before everything shut down for the pandemic. After another year of playing, I joined a USTA team, and about a year after that I started playing with Rachel. That’s how we met. Even though we went to high school together and had crossed paths a little, we really didn’t become friends until tennis brought us together. Now we play together all the time. How about you, Rachel? How did you start?

Rachel 1:30
Kind of the same thing. I’d had my four kids, and it was right after COVID. I needed to do something outside with my body, and I loved tennis right away. Kenz and I got on a team together kind of by accident, right? When we were 3.5s, and we were both playing a lot of singles, oddly enough. We kind of fell into playing doubles together, and we immediately both realized that we were a little bit nuts for strategy and studying the game, and that we also just love to have fun on the court. Carolyn, when we played you, that was such a wonderful match. Yes, we do strategy, but most of the time we try to circle back to enjoying being out there together, learning and trying to get better every day.

Erin 2:34
Can you give our listeners a few pieces of doubles advice? We’ve had a lot of teaching pros tell us what we should do, but our listeners are 2.5s to 4.0s, and oftentimes we hear that they want advice from people who are on the court, in the trenches. So give us your advice. Rachel, do you want to start?

Rachel 2:57
Sure. I think the biggest thing that elevated our game was the use of signals during our service game. One hundred percent. Not only the server calling the location where she’s going to place the serve, but the server’s partner up at the net responding with what they want to do, whether they want to poach, or fake, or stay. Just knowing in your mind before the ball is even hit what the plan is gives you confidence.

McKenzie and Rachel 3:11
The big thing where we’ve kind of changed is being able to execute on that serve. It’s important to remember that if you say wide and it goes up the T, you’ve got to be ready to push that ball. I also think it helps us just to focus. Especially when the server’s partner is up there and you can see where the returner has lined up. Maybe they’re really crowding the T, so we decide, do we want to jam it at them, or go wide? Sometimes I’ll call it from the front if Rachel’s serving, or vice versa. It also makes us check back in and focus as the point starts. When we don’t play well, it’s because of focus. So the strategy for us is really just to keep us in the point, keep our heads in the game, and make sure we’re communicating. One of our biggest things is that when we stop communicating, that’s when things fall apart for us. So the more we’re talking to each other on the court, the better. Even in a tight match, when we’ve called the serve, it goes where it’s supposed to go, the return comes back, and your partner poaches and gets a good look but hits it in the net, so you miss your poach, Kenz will turn to me, or I’ll turn to her, and go, “Two out of three things are right there. We did two out of three things right.” So we’re always looking toward the next point, and the next match, and staying positive with each other. Because we all know you’re going to miss a volley, or you’re going to fake too early and they’re going to burn you down the line, right?

McKenzie 5:05
Yeah.

Rachel 5:05
Sometimes it doesn’t work out. But having that plan in your mind and staying positive with your partner is a game changer. We’ve lost enough matches that we go, “We don’t want to lose that way. We don’t want to lose because we backed off our plan.” And as she said, one of our pros has said, play to the next match. So we really try to keep building, keep playing and keep trying things.

McKenzie and Rachel 5:28
We’ll go, “Okay, three out of four things went right there. We got the ball we wanted, we just missed that last shot.” Instead of focusing on the miss, it’s “Look what we did well here.” Another thing, and this is one we’ve implemented most recently, is: lose two points, change something up. If you lose two in a row, switch something up. It can be going two back, right? “Okay, we lost two points in a row, now we’re serving at love-30, we’re going to go two back.” Give them a new look. At this level, I find the returner will try to drop it short, so we prepare: who’s going to go if they drop it short? Which one of us is going for that? And who’s going to call it, and who’s going to take it if it comes? We prepare ourselves for that situation, and usually it goes right in the nose.

Erin 6:15
But you’ve made a plan.

Rachel 6:17
We’ve got a plan. It also makes people think more about where they’re going to put the ball. If they’ve kind of got a rhythm, it breaks that rhythm and creates a little chaos for them. They’re thinking a little harder, and usually it draws an error. I’d say about half the time, 50% of those points, we win just by drawing an error from them.

Erin 6:34
The other thing I’ve noticed at our level is that just having a plan, and having your opponents know you have a plan, helps. Even if you fake a signal and just go, “Uh-huh, yep, okay,” they’re like, “Oh man, these people have their act together.” That throws people off. It’s not that a lot of people at our levels don’t have a strategy. It might be “hit to someone’s backhand” or whatever. But those signals you talked about are super important. Honestly, I’m sure if you told a 2.5 to decide where to serve the ball, they’d say we’re just happy to get the ball in the box at that point. But you could maybe just make a planned poach or a planned stay, or just pretend like you’re making a plan. Sometimes even when people get together on the baseline and talk, I always wonder what they’re talking about. Are they talking about where they’re having lunch after? Or are they saying, “Erin’s forehand is clearly better than her backhand, so I’m going to serve to her backhand”? I’m just wondering, and that makes me not focus.

Rachel 7:34
A hundred percent, we’ve noticed that as well. And it’s interesting, you just talked about that. Kenz and I played the Raleigh Racket Club member-guest this weekend, and it was one set, no-ad, so a short set. What we tried to do was identify weaknesses right away. “Okay, they’re running around their backhand in the warm-up.” Whoever you’re warming up with, “They haven’t hit a single backhand,” or “She’s got a short slice forehand, let’s jam her up the middle.” Or we’re going to go Australian. We went Australian when she had that short slice return.

Erin 8:12
You guys did Australian?

McKenzie and Rachel 8:15
Yes, we actually do that a lot. One thing we’ve done with that is to do it on the big points. That’s where we’ve progressed from last year. We would do Australian last year, but we would do it when we were up 40-15. Now we played a match on Tuesday and it was a pretty tight match, and I think it was 30-40 and I was serving, and I said, “Let’s just do Australian.” We did it and we won that point. Then we did I-formation on the next point, and we won that point, and that was our match point. So now we do it on the bigger points. That’s something Jane Foreman said. We did a clinic with Jane Foreman, who I don’t know if you guys follow, but she’s awesome.

Erin 8:54
She’s the one with the glove, right? That’s what I call her. Have you seen that? I’ll show Carolyn. I’m sure a lot of people listening will know who she is. She’s in Florida, right? Miami. She films her doubles clinics and talks to them through the point, and you can see her hand, because she talks with one hand and it has a glove on. She’ll tell you what you did well or what you did really…

Rachel 9:22
She only tells you what you did wrong. We were like, “We want Jane just to yell at us.”

Erin 9:32
I want her just to yell at me and tell me everything I’m doing wrong. That’s so funny. That’s awesome. I didn’t know you did that. That’s really neat.

Rachel 9:39
Yeah, she’s incredible.

Erin 9:41
Let me ask you a question too. Carolyn and I played you a couple of years ago, and this one point will always stand out in my mind. We were at your home club, playing in the Abilities Tennis tournament. We were doing signals. I’m sure I was the server. I was behind Carolyn, she was at the net, and I was supposed to serve it somewhere, maybe wide, and I didn’t. We had our plan, and my serve was so completely not where it was supposed to be. So I want to ask you guys: if the serve doesn’t go where it’s supposed to, do you change your plan in the moment, or do you just go for it? Because I will tell you, Carolyn just goes for it. She had to poach. She’s laughing because it was so significant. I would have thought nobody would poach that ball, but she was like, “I said I had a plan. I’m going for the plan.” Someone actually saw it happen and they were like, “How did she still go for that ball?” And I was like, “Because Carolyn had a plan in mind.” And actually, she won us the point, believe it or not. So what happens with you guys? If you make a plan for a serve or a poach and something goes wrong, do you, because you play together so much, sort of read each other’s minds? And like you said, Rachel, let McKenzie know which balls to let her take and not. Do you change it in the moment?

McKenzie 11:04
Or do you just go? To me, go means go.

Erin 11:08
Or do you do the Carolyn method?

Rachel 11:10
Well, Carolyn, you’re correct. You are supposed to stick with it regardless. And we do not. We abort.

McKenzie and Rachel 11:19
We know we’re going to do that. We could call it all day, and then that ball is way cross court and I am not going after that ball. We know we’re not going to stick with it. And we’ve had pros tell us, “You guys aren’t doing this right.” It’s okay. You’re poaching, and you stayed, and that’s not what we’re supposed to do. So Carolyn is correct.

McKenzie 11:47
Carolyn’s correct. But Carolyn’s not winning, just so you know. They are winning. You won that point.

Erin 11:55
She did. And she’s only saying that because she’s been out of tennis for two years, but she’s coming back strong.

Rachel 12:01
But I do want to say that sometimes you can plan that poach on the side you prefer. For me, my backhand volley, if we do a planned poach, is so effective. I’m going to plan it on this side. You’re serving ad, I’m over here on deuce, I’m going to go. And vice versa. Kenz’s forehand volley is incredible, so it’s more likely we’re going to do it on that side, and you might continue to stick with the plan more on that side. And that backhand volley you do is so unexpected, because it’s such a hard shot, and it’s so good. Thank you, you guys are so kind. But for me, it’s easier to take my backhand volley at the net where it’s supposed to go. You’re supposed to go net player to net player. Don’t ever take that poach back to the baseline player and give them all the time in the world to pass you down the line or send it where they want to send it. For whatever reason, my forehand volley, I feel like, goes back to the baseline every time. It’s like knowing your own limitations.

Erin 13:13
And having your partner know your limitations.

Rachel 13:16
One hundred percent. There are so many points where we just know what the other person is going to do, whether it’s right or wrong. It’s very surprising when we let a ball come between us down the middle. That’s very rare. Or when we get burned because we’re out of position, because we’re so used to each other.

McKenzie and Rachel 13:28
That’s one thing I also think at the club level, at our level of tennis: not having consistent partners. Carolyn, you’ve played with someone different all season, and it’s just not a great strategy. If it’s possible at all, have two partners, or three at the most, in a season. I think that’s just so huge.

Erin 13:55
Yeah. I try to do that as a captain if I can. We kind of poll people and say, “Who do you feel like you play well with? Who do you not play well with?” And then we try our hardest to accommodate that. But we’re not professional players where this is our whole life. Everyone’s got kids to pick up, or a doctor’s appointment.

Carolyn 14:13
Yeah, it was my fault I didn’t have the same partner each time, because of my scheduling. But ideally, is all I’m saying.

Rachel 14:19
It does make a difference, is all. We’re moms who play tennis, and it’s secondary to our real lives. I think the other problem is that some people say, “I can’t play with her, she’s my friend, I don’t want to disappoint her.” That makes a big difference. Kenz and I know that even if I miss that forehand volley four times in a row, I’m going to say, “Keep going.” I look back and go, “Go, girl. Go for it every time.”

McKenzie 14:48
Yep.

Carolyn 14:51
Thanks to McKenzie and Rachel for coming on the podcast. We have another episode where they discuss their receiving strategy, including the secret play they use, and also the craziest situation that’s ever happened to them on the court. We hope you check out our website, which is secondservepodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening, and we hope to see you on the court soon.

The post Ep. 358: Winning Doubles with Signals & Staying Positive appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

We are replaying this episode but let us know if you grunt!

Here’s a Transcript of our Conversation with Mike:

Tennis Grunting: Distraction, Rules and Hindrances

Carolyn 0:03
Hi, this is Carolyn and I’m here with Erin, and I’m really excited: my husband Mike is here with us tonight. For a little background, he is a USTA 4.0. Tonight we’re going to talk about grunting. I played someone recently with a really long grunt. I’ve played people who grunted previously and it didn’t bother me, but this time it did. I think it bothered me more because I’ve played other sports, and tennis is supposed to be such a quiet sport. You’re not allowed to talk, but you are allowed to grunt. So let’s start with Mike. Has your opponent grunting ever bothered you?

Mike 0:42
No, I mean, normally most grunting doesn’t bother me. I don’t tend to notice it on the court. There’s a wide distribution of people who grunt, right? Some people grunt extremely loud on every single point, no matter what the shot is. Some people never make a noise on the court, and most people are somewhere in the middle. I think I fall in the middle. I’ll grunt on a point where I’m reaching or having to really extend or push myself. I do sometimes grunt, but not every single point. For the most part, with 99% of my opponents, I don’t have any issue with it being distracting to me. That’s where I’ve always been. How about you, Erin?

Erin 1:36
Yeah, I think I fall right where you do. I know people we play against who grunt, but it doesn’t typically bother me, because I know it’s just part of their game. I think I was watching a pro match, and you know, there are some that are notorious for grunting. Maria Sharapova used to do it really badly when she was playing, and Azarenka does it, and of course Serena, on hard shots, and they scream. Then I was at a clinic with a friend, talking about making sounds, and I tried really hard to grunt as I was hitting, and it messed me up and it made me laugh really hard. I just can’t do it. But I do it sort of quietly when I’m trying to hit a winner. I can hear myself doing it, but I’m sure other people don’t hear it. Even that makes me laugh, because it seems so serious when I’m grunting. I guess it’s just a natural thing. I don’t remember a lot of people it’s bothered me with. But Carolyn, it sounds like you’ve had several. Is it mostly singles? Is it doubles? Does it run the gamut?

Carolyn 2:50
It’s mostly singles, and it’s the long grunt. It’s the grunt where the ball’s still coming your way. They’ve already hit the ball and you’re still hearing their grunt.

Erin 3:00
It’s like a follow-through grunt.

Carolyn 3:01
Yes. I was telling Mike, what’s the difference between that and me yelling a word right after I hit the ball to my opponent, like “Miss it”? For them, they’re making a noise. That’s a hindrance. If I yell a word right after I hit the ball, what’s the difference between a word and them still making a noise?

Mike 3:24
Yeah.

Carolyn 3:25
Yeah.

Mike 3:25
That’s a good point. It’s a gray area that we don’t like. When it’s such a long grunt that it lingers the whole time the ball is coming toward you, that’s interesting.

Carolyn 3:36
So I looked up the USTA rule on this, in Friend at Court. This is page 42, number 37 of the code, and it says, “Grunting. A player should avoid grunting and making other loud noises. Grunting and other loud noises may bother not only the opponents, but also players on adjacent courts. In an extreme case, an opponent or a player on an adjacent court may seek the assistance of an official. Grunting and the making of loud noises that affect the outcome of a point are hindrances.” But then they go on to say that only an official may rule that these actions are hindrances, in order that a let be played or a point lost, depending on whether an official had previously warned the offending player. So basically there is no rule when we’re playing, right? There’s nothing.

Erin 4:19
Yeah, because there’s no official at any of our matches, ever. Even at states, we asked for an official to be on a court with someone we knew made bad line calls, and they literally said, “We don’t have enough volunteers,” or “We don’t have an official on site.” We requested one and one couldn’t come to our court. I don’t know if this has ever happened to you, Mike. But in a regular USTA match, there is no official to call it.

Mike 4:54
No. So essentially the rule says try not to grunt, and if you do, there’s nothing your opponent can do about it. So okay.

Erin 5:06
So there’s really not a rule.

Mike 5:08
So there’s really not a rule.

Erin 5:09
There’s really not a rule. I was going to ask Mike, I’m assuming a lot more men grunt than women. Does it not bother you? Do you find that a lot of men do it?

Mike 5:21
I think grunting is kind of like throwing your racket, in men’s versus women’s. Carolyn has said to me how shocked she was in one of her matches that an opponent threw a racket. An opponent throws a racket in one out of every two matches I’m involved in. Not necessarily on my court, but if you’re playing a USTA match, once every other week someone will be throwing a racket around on a men’s court. I think grunting is kind of the same thing. There are lots of men who grunt and yell and are much more vocal on the tennis court than on the women’s court, I think. But I kind of think of it as a bell curve, like I talked about earlier. Most people are in the middle. We make some noises when we’re really struggling, or really trying hard to reach a ball, or really trying to nail that overhead or whatever. And on either end, there are people who are super quiet, and there are people who grunt really loud or have just odd grunts.

Carolyn 6:30
Every time they hit the ball.

Mike 6:31
Every time they hit the ball.

Mike 6:55
Yeah, like you mentioned earlier, Erin.

Erin 6:58
Yeah, I think a couple of the commentators, like Martina Navratilova, actually complain about it, because I don’t think she ever did it in her time. She thinks it’s ridiculous and it’s gotten out of hand. I actually watched a match today, one of the lead-up tournaments to the Australian Open, and Sabalenka was playing. She goes bigger and bigger, she has no in-between. They actually said that when she’s struggling, she starts to grunt even more, because she hits the ball harder instead of pulling it back a notch. So they always listen for that, when she’s going even more.

Carolyn 7:33
Yeah. After the girl was grunting on every single stroke, I looked it up and I was like, is grunting beneficial? I found an article from The Guardian in 2018 that said, “What can the science tell us about grunting in tennis?” What they said is that grunting could be considered performance enhancing for the grunter and performance hindering for their opponent. They’ve done some preliminary experimental work that showed grunting may mask important auditory information used by an opponent, because they’re grunting as they’re hitting the ball, so you can’t hear anything. They took skilled university tennis players, and there was a 3.8% increase in groundstroke hitting velocity when they grunted. For their serve, there was a 4.9% enhancement in velocity when they grunted.

Erin 8:28
And since we’re a data-driven society now, that probably means it’s here to stay, and even future generations will become even louder, because they’ll start teaching it in college.

Mike 8:41
It sounds like if it increases your velocity by almost 5%… it says on a serve, 4.9%.

Erin 8:50
So what you’re saying is we basically need to start grunting, Carolyn, to increase our velocity. I’m the dummy for not grunting. That’s another thing we’ve got to practice and remember. Tennis is already hard enough.

Mike 9:03
Practice your grunt.

Erin 9:05
Practice your grunt. That’s right.

Carolyn 9:08
That’s right.

Mike 9:09
Well, I don’t know about the increase, because we don’t have radar guns when we play either. But we do have some courts in the area that are in loud areas, next to a highway, or next to a fire station where the fire trucks are constantly going in and out. It actually is very distracting when you can’t hear the sound of the ball coming off the opponent’s strings because of the traffic on the interstate right next to the tennis court. You do lose some information on those points when the opponent hits the ball.

Erin 9:45
And the other thing, with college tennis, I think in the last few years, and Carolyn, I think we talked about this a long time ago, they’re actually increasing a lot of crowd noise. It’s almost like Fed Cup, with cowbells and cheering, and pretty soon there’ll be cheerleaders. There’s all this commotion. But for our adult rec tennis, I think people get really irritated if there’s a baby crying, or you’re playing a tennis match at a park and a kid on a playground is screaming, and your opponent gets upset about that poor child who just wants to, whatever. I think it becomes ridiculous that it’s a sport that people feel has to be played in silence almost. So maybe the trend is grunting, and it sounds like it might be here to stay, but I think the trend also is to make it not so quiet. What other sports are super quiet? Tennis, golf… I don’t know. It’s probably all right.

Carolyn 10:54
But it did mess me up. When I played someone who grunted, it really did. And I played someone previously, a few years ago, who was lovely and very good, and every time she hit the ball, even in warm-up, she’d go “Eee.” Every single time it was an “Eee,” and it was so much like a scream that my teammate who was playing singles on the court next to me goes, “Hey, it sounds like you’ve got a screamer on your court.” It was so annoying. I’m fine with it. It’s just that if an “Eee” is allowed, then I think I should be able to say “Miss it” to them, or “Take this,” when I hit the ball. Why is one allowed and one not? That’s my only issue.

Mike 11:39
You don’t like the gray zones.

Erin 11:41
She does not. She likes the set rule. She wants to read it in black and white. I told you I had a kid who was heckling me, right? I was playing his mother in singles, and I thought he was saying “Neutragena” or “Nutrigrain bar,” some sort of food, but he was going, “Nah, nah, nah.” I finally said, “Well, what is he saying?” And she goes, “Hey buddy, what are you saying?” And he said, “Miss the ball,” or something like that. He was three years old, and he was heckling me. I guess I could have called a hindrance on his mother for bringing her three-year-old, but I just let it go. Because again, it’s adult rec tennis, and you become the strange one if you complain about it, as opposed to the person who’s actually doing the hindrance, right?

Mike 12:38
Well, I know Carolyn, you grew up playing basketball, and Carolyn always says, “Why can’t it be like the Duke Blue Devils basketball fans?” If players in the basketball arena are trying to shoot a free throw, and everyone’s behind them, the fans behind the basket spinning their signs around, why can’t we deal with that in tennis?

Carolyn 13:04
Exactly. Thanks very much to Mike for joining us. I now feel like I’m the dumb one on the court for not grunting a lot, but let us know what you think. You can message us on our website, which is secondservepodcast.com. You can also listen to previous episodes there. Mike has done a few before that have been really popular, including whether your racket matters and whether your strings matter, so we hope you check those out. Thanks so much for listening, and we hope to see you on the court soon.

The post Ep. 342: To Grunt or Not to Grunt – That is the Question! appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

He has hosted tennis television and radio shows since 2004, including doing play by play at the US Open for usopen.org radio.  Bill has been a tournament director on the ATP Tour, chaired ATP committees on Television and the 250s, served on the Tournament Council, and been an instructor at the ATP University during this period.  

Transcript of our Conversation with Bill Oakes

Carolyn 0:07
Hi, this is Carolyn and I’m here with Erin. This is part two of our conversation with Bill Oates about what we can learn from the pros to help our adult recreational game. If you haven’t listened to part one, we hope you’ll go back and listen. But here is part two. Bill, I really liked your point that the majority of the time we shouldn’t be going for winners.

Bill 0:27
I mean, I watched a singles college match where I think I saw three winners hit. This was a Division I Power Five match. I saw three winners hit in the match. Every other point was an unforced or forced error.

Erin 0:44
That’s my game. That’s me.

Carolyn 0:45
Yeah.

Bill 0:46
Unforced Errors. I think I said last time that your podcast should have been called Unforced Errors.

Carolyn 0:52
I actually tried to name it Unforced Error, and somebody already had it.

Bill 0:57
I believe it. Unforced errors are what drive most points in USTA recreational play. It’s not winners. So if you cut down on your unforced errors, think of how many more points you’ll win. And if you’re a top player, you can set up a point. It’s a game of chess. I think Rafael Nadal may be the greatest player ever at learning how to set up a point. He plays two shots ahead. He knows that if he moves you to this particular spot, you’re going to have choices, and then he’s already got in his head what he’s going to do next. Novak is great at that too. Top players are great at it because they want to take care of not only the physical excellence they have, but the mental excellence. They play chess when they’re out there, not checkers. That’s a key factor for top players, but I think most of them know that. I’m really thinking more about the players who are 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, and the small little things that can make their game a little better, from what I’ve seen and heard from the top players.

Erin 2:10
Yeah. I watch myself play tennis, and it’s shocking that I can win matches, because I don’t feel like I’m that good. But I have a lot of fun doing it. She’s great.

Bill 2:17
I think your last statement is the most important one: you have a lot of fun doing it. And the part I find great about both of you, and so many others, is that you have joy in the game and in what you do. You get to do things like this podcast, where you hopefully bring that joy to others and let them talk about the joy they have in playing tennis, the sport of a lifetime.

Erin 2:45
Yeah. But again, back to doubles. If our two opponents are talking and they seem to be coming up with a plan, I’ll sometimes walk up to my partner and just say, “I don’t really have anything to say, but I want them to think we’re coming up with a plan.” Whether we have one or not, that gets in their head.

Bill 3:00
Your communication with your partner does not need to always be “Hey, do this.” It can be “Hey, we’ve got this,” or “Do you have any thoughts?” Take a split second. On the pro tour, there are 30 seconds between points. Some people want to maximize that, some people take advantage of it. I get that. But don’t feel like a point ends and you have to be in position right away. Play at the comfort and pace of your game, within the rules. That doesn’t mean you can take two minutes between points, but take your few seconds. Sometimes you need it, to clear your head after a bad shot or whatever it is. So take that time. The pros do. When you watch a professional player try to play fast, it’s because they feel like they’re on a roll and they’ve got their opponent in a bad spot. When you see players play slow, sometimes it’s to slow down their opponent or get in their head. But it’s all based on their comfort and their desire to keep the pace they want. The same thing can be true for regular players, just do it within the rules, within your allotted time, and don’t feel bad or pressured. If you see them eight seconds after the point’s over, standing and ready to serve, and you need a break, say, “Hey, give me a sec.” You don’t even need to say sorry if you don’t want to, though I think that’s a nice thing to say. Take your few seconds.

Erin 4:35
Yeah. I have a question for you. Are you still playing pretty often?

Bill 4:39
I don’t play as much as I’d like to, because I have a bad shoulder from a skiing accident. I don’t want to get surgery, so serving is really problematic for me. I like to hit. I was playing with Dave Odom, the former Wake Forest and University of South Carolina basketball coach. We’re about the same level, and we would hit pretty regularly, but he always wanted to play points. I would say, “I’m not going to play with you if we’re going to play points, because I can’t serve.” He’s like, “Oh no, no.” And then, after we’d hit for five minutes, he’s like, “Let’s play some points.”

Carolyn 5:16
Right. That’s great. I do have one more question for you, Bill. Since you used to play tennis a lot and you played in a fun league, what’s your most memorable moment on the court?

Bill 5:26
It’s not a good one.

Carolyn 5:28
Okay.

Bill 5:29
So I was playing in an 18s event more than two decades ago, meaning that I’m now 57. It was on clay, and I drew the second seed in the tournament, and he was crushing me. I mean, hammering me, beating me senseless. I had lost the first set 6-love, and I think I was down 2-love in the second. It was 40-30 and I was serving, and I serve-and-volleyed and came up, and he lobbed me. He hit a great lob, four inches inside the baseline, and I called it out. I hooked him, so I could win a game. I went and rubbed out the mark after the match. After the match, at the net, I said, “I just couldn’t lose a double bagel.” And he laughed, and he goes, “No, I don’t blame you.” He was a good player, he played Division I college, and it was so much fun playing that. I remember it to this day. I can tell you where I was and what court I was on. He was just a really good guy. I will say my favorite positive memory was the first time I got to play a match with my parents at St. John’s College High School in Washington, D.C. We would go play there, and I remember as a little kid going to play there and then playing a match with my parents. To me, that is really what drove my love of the game. I became a ball boy at the Washington Star, which is now the Citi Open. I started working at tennis courts at Wintergreen in 1977. Tennis has been a good portion of my adult life and career, and it’s so much fun, and it’s brought me so many friends and funny stories. Whether it’s Brooke Shields or Martina Navratilova or Andre Agassi or Pete Sampras, I’ve got so many funny stories that I wish I could write a book, but many of these people would then try to run me over if I wrote it.

Erin 7:34
Exactly.

Carolyn 7:36
We can’t thank Bill enough for being on the podcast. If you’d like to see a picture of Bill, please check out our website, which is secondservepodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening, and we hope to see you on the court soon.

The post Ep. 341: Cut Unforced Errors And Win More Matches appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

Join us for a compelling conversation with Bill Oakes, a veteran in sports marketing with over three decades of experience. Discover how concentrating on minimizing unforced errors and focusing on strategy rather than hitting winners can revolutionize your performance, whether you’re a 2.5 or 3.5 USTA player.

Here’s a transcript of our conversation:

What We Can Learn from the Pros: Bill Oates

Carolyn 0:07
Hi, this is Carolyn and I’m here with Erin, and we are excited to have Bill Oates back with us tonight. He’s going to tell us what we can learn from the pros to help our adult recreational game. Bill has worked at Wake Forest University, the Winston-Salem Open, the USTA Southern section, and numerous sports marketing firms over the last 30-plus years. So, Bill, tell us what we can learn from the pros to help our adult recreational game.

Bill 0:35
Well, some more than others. I’m going to start with something I heard from Ellis Ferreira. If you don’t know who Ellis Ferreira was, he was ranked number one in doubles for a long time and won many Grand Slam titles in men’s doubles and mixed. He’s a South African who played at the University of Alabama, and he’s just a really smart, good guy. I heard him say once: don’t hit winners against 90% of USTA players. Just keep the ball in play, because honestly, it’s a war of attrition. There are levels of USTA players, 4.0, 4.5, 5.0, that can play that way, but the average USTA player, which is a 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, just needs to keep the ball in play. It was a really interesting conversation, because he said that half the time when he coaches, he notices that people try to do stuff they really don’t need to try. If you go to the 55s, 60s and 65s nationals, the top players in the country, those guys aren’t necessarily hitting winners. They’re just keeping the ball in play. Those matches may go forever. They may not hit it down the center every time, the guys and gals, but they’re not trying to hit lines. They’re not trying to go down the line, they’re not trying to do something crazy, because they know that the other player will make their own error. That’s why we have unforced errors. So keeping the ball in play is one thing I hear regularly from the top players: for most recreational players, keep the ball in play. And since most of us play doubles, I think the real issues are related to doubles. People who play singles, it’s a little bit of a different game, obviously. But when we’re talking about USTA players, let’s concentrate on doubles. The number one thing is communication: being able to communicate with your partner about where you’re going to go, what you’re going to do, what they’re going to do, where they’re going to go, and understanding that. When you watch doubles players, and I will say this, watch them between every point. They talk. It’s not just a fist bump. They talk about what’s going on on the court, what they’re seeing. “Hey, this player can’t do this, this can, don’t worry about it.” Sometimes it’s a pep talk. I loved the mic’d-up players on changeovers. When coaching has occurred at the WTA and ATP level, they’ve mic’d up some coaches, and sometimes they’re talking about where to hit the ball, “keep the ball deep, hit to their backhand,” but sometimes they’re talking about where they’re going to have dinner. I remember on Tennis Channel watching two women players literally talking about where they were going to have dinner that night. That may not always be the best, but I always thought it was pretty funny, because they were trying to take their mind off a bad game. Another component that I think is really important for tennis is what professional football players call the cornerback mentality. If you’re a cornerback, the guy on the outside covering the wide receiver, and a touchdown pass is thrown against you, they tell cornerbacks to have a short memory. Don’t remember the bad thing that just happened. I’d use the same mentality with players. Have a short memory. If you make a bad shot, you make a bad shot. Try not to think about it, because the short memory will go a long way toward your confidence. And that’s the other part: play with confidence. That doesn’t mean play with arrogance. If you go into it feeling like “I can’t do it,” that goes back to my first point: keep the ball in play. Everybody who plays can keep the ball in play. Have confidence that you can, so keep it in play. The other parts I would say are: focus on playing. Stay in the game, stay in the match. Don’t be thinking about picking up your kids.

Carolyn 4:50
That’s hard, though. That’s really hard.

Bill 4:52
It is hard, but that’s where you need to stay focused. And when you look at the top players, even the person ranked 150 in the world, some of the things you can take from them that I think are really important are footwork and what they do right after they’ve struck the ball. It’s not just leading up to the point, but what they do right after. Are they staying there? Don’t admire your shot. This was one of my real problems. I’d make a shot and then I’d want to watch it instead of moving back into position. So footwork and positioning are so important. When you look at players on tour, when they make a shot, they’re already moving. Once they’ve struck the ball, they’ve started moving to get back in position. The reason that’s important is that if you don’t start quickly, you’re going to get out of position quickly, especially if the ball is off to one side or the other, your forehand or your backhand, and you’re just not in a good position. The other thing I would say is that when you look at the top players before the match gets started, they set up their seating area, so when they come for a changeover, it allows them to focus, be comfortable, get their mind right, and create communication opportunities in doubles. They don’t keep their water bottle in their bag. They’ve got it set. I don’t know that you need to be Rafa, but you need to be set up before. And even before your match starts, look at what players do after the warm-up. They’ll go sit in their chair for a second to get their mind right. It’s the mental part. We all recognize it’s the mental part of the game.

Erin 6:37
Yeah. I read recently, I don’t know where it was, and I don’t know what the exact statistic is, but at the levels you mentioned, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, it’s more of a mental game, because everyone has generally about the same skills. There are certainly some better than others, but like you said, people can keep the ball in play, and it’s such a mental game that I think the mental aspect comes in more at those lower levels.

Carolyn 7:04
Yeah, it’s also hard, because this is adult recreational tennis. People will start talking to you about where you’re going to eat, whether they’re getting a divorce, what’s going on in their life. And it’s really hard to say, “Oh, I need to focus,” because then you’re the mean one.

Erin 7:20
I think you’re the weirdo if you’re not engaging in conversation.

Bill 7:25
Recreational tennis is recreational tennis, and it should be about fun. There are many levels of this conversation. Maybe the social part is why you play and you don’t want to create the focus. But that doesn’t mean you can’t create situations as they relate to communication with your partner: using your opportunities at changeovers to communicate, understanding your footwork, not admiring your shot, keeping the ball in play. I agree. I don’t play tennis to be a competitive person anymore. I play tennis to have a social experience with my friends. So for me, I may not be talking about divorce. I mean, that sounds kind of sad.

Carolyn 8:11
Exactly. That’s what I did.

Erin 8:13
Someone felt comfortable enough with Carolyn, because she’s such a nice person. And I thought this was actually sweet: there was a woman who lost to Carolyn, and I think she apologized because she said, “I’m getting ready to have this huge interview for a job,” that she really wanted, right?

Carolyn 8:32
Yes.

Erin 8:33
And she didn’t play well, and Carolyn was better. It was a nice match. And then I think you saw her a few days later, and she was so excited to tell Carolyn that she had gotten that job.

Carolyn 8:41
I was like, “Was this strategy? Is she telling me she’s got this job interview to mess me up?” And then it was just like, no, she’s just a really nice person. She actually did have a job interview.

Bill 8:53
Yeah. I think one of the great things about tennis is that most people truly are nice and are doing it because of enjoyment. But when I talk to the players, when they do clinics, they don’t talk about whether you’re using an Eastern or Western grip, or whether you’re going to hit a kick serve to the corner, or whether someone’s creeping in too much in doubles to the center. You want to know whether the server is going to serve and volley or stay back, or whether you’re going to poach or whatever. Those are the simple communication components. People aren’t going, “Okay, this person leans in, you’ve got to go down the line.” Normally it’s, if you know they’re going to poach, maybe you lob. But keep it simple. The old acronym KISS, keep it simple, stupid, really does come into play, especially at the early levels and for your enjoyment of tennis. You may not get it right the first time or the second time, but you need to experience the opportunities and see what other people are doing and what your capability is. And if you go in thinking, “I can do this, I can keep the ball in play,” that’s half the battle.

Carolyn 10:18
We really appreciate Bill being on the podcast. We have one more episode with Bill where he will give us more tips to help our adult recreational game, and he’ll discuss his most memorable moment on the court, and it involves calling the ball out when he knew it was in. We hope you check out our website, which is secondservepodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening, and we hope to see you on the court soon.

The post Ep. 340: What Adult Rec Players Can Learn From The Pros appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

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Here’s a transcript of our conversation:

Adult Recreational Tennis Team Tryouts

Carolyn 0:06
Hi, this is Carolyn and I’m here with Erin, and we’re going to talk about trying out for an adult recreational team. Erin, have you ever had to try out for an adult recreational team?

Erin 0:18
No, I haven’t, but I do have a story about it. The reason we’re doing this is that it’s so ridiculous to do adult recreational tennis team tryouts.

Carolyn 0:30
Well, I have. And I also got cut from that tryout. So maybe it should be getting cut from an adult recreational team. I’m not sure. This was my first experience with adult recreational tennis. I took a lesson from a tennis pro, and after I’d taken a few lessons, he set me up with a lady he said I should go hit with. He said, “She’ll be great.” Well, I go to hit, and it’s with a team of 2.5 ladies. And I was terrible. I was hitting the ball over the fence. So I should have been cut. I mean, the captain wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t even know I was trying out. I just thought I was going to hit. I was trying to make new friends. You know, you’re an adult, you don’t have any friends, and I’m trying a new sport. Then after I practiced with these ladies, I got a text from the captain just saying, “Hey, I’m sorry, there’s not a spot for you. The team is full.”

Erin 1:40
Magically, we filled the spots today, right before this text. We filled all the spots.

Carolyn 1:46
Yeah. Before the practice, there was a possibility, but afterwards, there wasn’t. And I told somebody, and they were like, “You probably could have looked it up,” because where we live in North Carolina, on our spring teams, there’s a limit of 15 people. They told me I should go back and see if there were only 13 on that team, or not 15.

Erin 2:06
Right. That’s so funny. I didn’t have that experience that I know of. But I mean, we all could have gone through tryouts, right? That’s how crazy adult rec tennis can be. We probably all had a tryout and maybe didn’t know. And it’s funny that the pro set you up with this captain, but then it was a whole team of people. So you were probably not only being judged by her. It’s not like you were just going out for a friendly hit. All eyes were on you and you had no idea.

Carolyn 2:34
Nobody wanted to play with me. I played on different courts that night, I remember that. I guess nobody said yes.

Erin 2:42
That’s even better. Oh my gosh, I could just picture it. And here’s the funny thing about Carolyn: I know you got good really quickly. So they were probably kicking themselves. The best thing you could say is, “Big mistake,” because you went from a 2.5 to a 4.0. How many years did it take you to go from 2.5 to 4.0?

Carolyn 3:05
Six. I think it was six.

Erin 3:07
That’s pretty good. They just had no idea how good you were going to get. But did it motivate you, maybe? Or you just didn’t know? Because that would motivate me. I would be like, “I’m taking every lesson.” I would be so competitive if I got cut that it would make me better.

Carolyn 3:23
No, I think the captain was correct. I was pretty terrible. So it wasn’t really a motivation. Then someone else asked me to be on a singles team, and I realized I really enjoyed it and really enjoyed the people. But I definitely started off getting cut without even realizing it. So for anyone listening, if you get cut from your first team, do not give up.

Erin 3:47
Right. Dream big, people, dream big. So I didn’t have that experience that I know of, but I was on a team that was going to states, and I remember them wanting to all meet and do a team practice. But it really wasn’t just a team practice. The captains were looking at who they should put on court one, court two and court three. I think it was a combo state, so maybe there were three doubles, because there was no singles at the time. I remember my doubles partner and I, who were typically doubles one, were playing against the women who were typically doubles two, and they were making bad line calls. My own teammates, I was shocked. I did not want to play another season with them. They’re lovely people now, but we were so competitive at 2.5 that I was like, “My own teammates are cheating, making bad line calls so that they can get on doubles one.” Which now is probably not the case at all, because sometimes that doubles one spot is too much pressure anyway at states. But I remember leaving that practice thinking, “I cannot believe we just did this.” It was a team practice, but it was really challenge matches, deciding who was going to play on what court at states. I couldn’t believe we were being competitive with our own teammates. But that’s 2.5 tennis for you. The competition makes people nuts.

Carolyn 5:20
It does, it does. And I don’t know if my husband is even going to allow me to put this on here, but I’m going to tell it anyway. He tried out for a team that was a level up. I think it was a 4.5 team. It was really interesting how it happened. You know how it is, where a friend of a friend asks you if you can play on this team? That’s how it happened. My husband thought he was being asked to be on the team, but I think he was being asked to try out for the team. The captain contacts him and says, “Do you want to meet and hit?” My husband and I were laughing because we were like, “This is totally a tryout.” And he gets there, and the guy who’s the captain is probably in his 20s, and he takes out a ball hopper full of balls. They go to opposite sides of the court, and he starts feeding my husband balls to hit. Then I guess he passed that part of the tryout, because after he stopped feeding balls, they decided to play a match. But my husband did say, “Is he going to feed me balls for the next hour and a half?”

Erin 6:44
Is this like he’s a pro and this is a clinic?

Carolyn 6:48
Yes, that’s so crazy. Luckily, Mike did make that team, but that was definitely a tryout, because afterwards the captain said, “You’re on the team.”

Erin 7:02
Did he get an offer right there and then? Did he get a rose? Was he presented a rose right there and then?

Carolyn 7:08
I think he got the offer to play singles only. You know how those offers are.

Erin 7:12
I get those offers a lot. “We would love you to be on this team, but we’ll be playing singles, and we need a warm body on a singles court, and you’re our girl.” Exactly. That’s so funny. I could see girls doing that, but I think we’d be a little more secretive about it. I thought guys were just straight up: “Hey, dude, this is a tryout. This is what we’re going to do.” But the fact that it was, I mean, that sounds so awkward. Could you imagine, as a woman, showing up and having a captain say, “All right, for the first 30 minutes I’m going to feed balls and you’re going to work on…” It’s like you paid a pro to do that and you’re like, “This is a lesson.” Not, “Okay, I’m going to check out your forehand and your backhand.” That’s so crazy.

Carolyn 8:02
Yes. What would you do, Erin, if someone asked you to be on a team, and you were going to hit with the captain, and they started feeding you balls from a hopper?

Erin 8:15
I have no idea what I would do. I would probably go through with it like Mike did and think, “This is super awkward.” I’m surprised he didn’t say, “What are we doing here?” They’re usually much more straightforward. I’d be like, “Okay, this is weird, but I’ll go along with it.” I don’t know. What would you do?

Carolyn 8:34
I would hit the balls. I would love it if someone would feed me balls.

Erin 8:39
And not pay them. Is this a free lesson? Yes, exactly. That’s crazy. Have you heard of anyone else having tryouts? I’m sure teams do it all the time. I did hear from someone recently that you should do challenge matches. Take your best deuce and ad players and play them against your second team or whatever. And I’m like, “Do you know that this is a women’s rec team? This is not going to go over well.”

Carolyn 9:12
Right.

Erin 9:14
I mean, they do that for juniors all the time, or for JTT. I think in high school and college, they always rank you on a court, but we don’t do that in adult rec. Maybe we should. Maybe we should start implementing new things, Carolyn.

Carolyn 9:31
That’s right. But be very clear from the beginning: this is a tryout, or this is to put you in the order we think for a match. I think if people’s expectations are set, they know what’s going to happen. What was so shocking for Mike is that he didn’t realize it was a tryout until he was in the tryout.

Erin 9:51
Well, same with you, except yours was a little less obvious. So the team that you didn’t make, was that a 2.5 team? Were they trying to build a super 2.5 team to go to states and beyond? Do you have any idea? Were they just looking for people and you didn’t make the cut? You weren’t the person they were looking for.

Carolyn 10:12
Yeah, I think they were just looking for people, and I was not very good, so I did not make the cut. I don’t know.

Erin 10:19
And Mike’s was truly, “We’re building a super team, we’re taking this as far as we can.”

Carolyn 10:26
I don’t even think it was.

Erin 10:32
That answer is worse. Because when you get to the 4.0 or 4.5 level, if you’re having tryouts, you think you’re having people try out to be on a super team. My husband hasn’t played, I think he played one season of league ever and doesn’t play at all anymore, but he captained a team, and literally guys are like, “Eh, I can’t play tonight. Let’s just forfeit that court.” And women are like, “That’s ridiculous. We paid to be in this league and we should make it up at all costs.” And guys are just like, “Eh, whatever.” So I’m surprised they would have tryouts for a team that they weren’t trying to build into a super team, to go on to playoffs and states and maybe beyond.

Carolyn 11:17
Yeah.

Erin 11:18
It seems like a lot of effort.

Carolyn 11:20
I think it was the captain deciding whether or not this person is good enough even to be on the team. Maybe it was to make a good team, but Mike, I don’t know if he’ll want me to say this, Mike is not a 4.5. He’s not a high-level 4.5. So I think it was just whether or not the captain was willing to have this person on his team.

Erin 11:43
Did he have any other 4.0s on that team? Did the captain have any other 4.0s?

Carolyn 11:48
I don’t know if he did. So maybe it was a level below: can you make it on this team? Maybe that’s the reason.

Erin 11:56
Yeah, I was going to say, if he had other ones, I hope that they had a tryout as well.

Carolyn 12:00
Yes. But Mike has tried out for a super team before and he didn’t make it. He probably should be on this podcast right now. I mean, he’s probably going to be like, “What are you talking about?” But he thought again that he was being invited to be on a super team, but it was a Tri-Level team, and he showed up for a tryout. With Tri-Level, they only take four at that level, and the other people trying out with him were self-rates and appeals. Mike was very honest: they were better than him, so they should make it. But again, let’s make everything clear. This is a tryout. Everybody should be very honest. When I went to try out for my 2.5 team, I didn’t know I was trying out. I was like, “Oh, I made some new friends,” and then all of a sudden I get a message saying I did not make it.

Erin 13:10
Not only are you not on our team, we are not going to be your friend.

Carolyn 13:14
I think the text actually said that I could come to practice when people couldn’t make it.

Erin 13:21
You were a sub. Yeah, you were a sub. Well, nowadays, if Mike thought, or you thought, or I thought that we were being invited onto a team, like someone has contacted us and said, “Hey, come out and hit tonight, I have this team,” I guess you should watch the language, like, “I have a spot for you on the team, but let’s hit to make sure.” Or I would just say, “Can you send me the team number?”

Carolyn 13:52
And I’m not stepping onto the court until you give me that team number.

Erin 13:56
And if they say no, then you know it’s a tryout. There you go, we solved the problem. If somebody asks you to play tennis because they have a team they’re putting together, but they say, “Come out and meet me to hit first,” and you say, “Can I have the team number so I can get registered?” and they say, “No, not yet,” you are going for a tryout.

Carolyn 14:17
Yes, that’s right.

Erin 14:19
There we go.

Carolyn 14:20
Please let us know if you’ve ever had to try out for an adult recreational team, and if you knew it was a tryout. You can message us on our website, which is secondservepodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening, and we hope to see you on the courts soon.

The post Ep. 339: Rec Tennis Tryouts – Getting Cut! appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

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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.

The post Ep. 338: Transform Your Net Play – Don’t Wait For An Invitation To The Party! appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

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Here’s a Transcript of our Conversation with Karen About Her Tiebreaker Strategy

Mental Game in Tiebreakers, Part Two

Carolyn 0:08
Hi, this is Carolyn and I’m here with Erin. This is part two of our episodes on tiebreakers with Karen Rembrandt. In part one, Karen gave us a few strategies and her philosophy on tiebreakers, but here is part two. Do you have any tips for not going away mentally? Because I’ve done that before. I’ve gone into a tiebreak and I go, “I’m going to hit the ball as hard as I can on every single shot.” I mean, it’s so dumb. Or I’m tired, I go in tired and I’m super aggressive, even though I know I’m tired. I don’t know.

Karen 0:39
I think when we talk about your actual strategy, it’s very dependent on who you’re playing and how you’re playing. If you figured out a way to win the second set, you’re going to need to continue to put that pressure on. Whatever it was, if you were lobbing, if you were hitting short, if you were hitting through the ball, you continue that pressure. If you dropped that second set pretty significantly, if there was a definite momentum switch, then you’re probably going to need to change your strategy a little bit. We played a doubles match in a tournament in South Carolina, and there’s also that debate of do you take a break or do you keep playing? I have not figured out the answer to that, but we won the second set pretty handily. We took a break because I thought we were going to be a little too hyped up after winning the second set so easily. I was like, let’s just settle down and not have that letdown. Well, that gave them enough time to decide they were going to switch sides. The deuce player played the ad side, and they came back and kind of steamrolled us. So I was like, okay, we shouldn’t have taken the break, because then we gave them more time to work on their strategy. We had the momentum, probably, but hindsight is 20/20. But I think the biggest thing, to answer your question about how do I not just get mad or be tired, is your self-talk. I’m a firm believer in your thoughts. If you take your thoughts to a stop sign, you have a choice. You can go left and go negative and feel sorry for yourself and mope and make it a miserable experience, and you don’t give them any credit. Or you can go right and tell yourself, “She hit a good shot, I made a mistake, I’m good, I’m ready for the next point.” It’s your choice. And I think that’s true in life too. You can go left or you can go right, but you have to practice it. You can’t just say, “Okay, I’m going to go right.” When you feel yourself going left, you need to stop and go, “No, she hit a good shot. We’re good. It’s 6-5. We’re right in this.” We cannot go down that slippery slope and not recover from it.

Erin 3:00
I think that’s why tennis is both amazing and frustrating, because I definitely went left in my match this weekend. And we’ve done this podcast enough to know, we’ve said this a million times, we should go right. No, it was more that I played against a crazy good slicer. There was no rhythm. She and I have history, there were no niceties. I just didn’t want to be in that match, but I still needed to win it. For my own ego, let’s just say, I needed to not go left and just say, “She is a good player.” After the fact, I can give her big credit. She wins a ton of matches because she plays super unconventionally. But man, we were just frustrated with both her and her partner, emotionally frustrated with them, not even with what shots they were hitting, just that they’re frustrating to play against. After, I was like, I can give them huge credit for being good players, and I see why they win a lot of matches. I just didn’t like the way the tennis was going at the time, and so I went left. Usually I can kind of remember a tiebreaker, and that one I just had that mentality of, “I want to win it, but I just want off the court.” I didn’t want to do the work to get off the court and be the winner. I just wanted to be the winner and get off the court very quickly.

Karen 4:22
Yeah. I wish it worked like that. I wish we could just wish the win. I don’t want to do the work, I just want to wish the win.

Erin 4:29
I know. And I do get that, like, I shouldn’t be in this tiebreaker. I shouldn’t have lost the first set to even be in this tiebreaker. I have to keep some sort of card in my bag to pull out in those situations and say, “Stop. Stop your emotions right now.”

Karen 4:44
All of those thoughts are not helpful for the situation. And then when you look back and you go, “Well, what was I thinking? Why couldn’t I just be in the present?” A lot of times my self-talk is “play a good point, four balls in, be here.” Or “it is what it is.” If I’m not playing well, it is what it is, so figure out a way to win not playing well. But be okay with the battle. I think that’s a lot of us: we get tired, mentally or physically, and we start making excuses, and we don’t just fight the fight and say, “Okay, at the end of the day…” When it takes me a day to go, “All right, they played a good match.” I told Carolyn the story: all the fluff interferes instead of just playing the ball. And I learned this lesson early: especially if you’re irritated with your opponent, if they’re not your friend, if there’s contention, play the ball. Don’t look at them, don’t think about them, just play the ball. It’s the looking at them that can let them get under your skin. Especially if they don’t look like tennis players, you’re like, “What am I even doing out here?”

Carolyn 6:08
You know, I’ve gone there before, like, “I’m really bad at this sport.”

Erin 6:13
I played this same duo a while ago, and we ended up winning in a match tiebreak, but this time I lost. And the whole time I thought, “These two need to take some lessons.” I just kept thinking about their technique. And listen, I know Karen’s watched me play enough. I know I don’t look great, but I’ve taken a million lessons. That was my mentality. In the first match and in this match, I was just like, “I’ve got stuff to do. They’re irritating me.” I should have played the ball. I remember you saying that too in Costa Rica. Play the ball. It’s not easy.

Karen 6:51
It sounds like it’s easy, but it’s discipline and practice, right? And it is amazing. I find myself even now, when I’m doing a drill that I’m terrible at, all I want to do is get out of that drill and do something I’m good at. That’s when we really need to have the discipline and say, “No, you’re doing this drill because you obviously need this drill.” And obviously, going in and playing teams that you know, “All right, the last two times we played, we went to third-set tiebreakers. It’s going to be a battle, and I’m going to stay in it.” If you’re even, you play ten times, it’s probably going to be five and five, and then you just hit the practice courts and work harder next time. It’s more about not beating yourself than beating them, right? Because if you’re battling yourself, now you’ve got two opponents, yourself and them. And your partner’s looking at you going, “I need you here now,” right?

Erin 7:59
Do you have different advice? Because you teach all levels, and just so everybody knows, Karen is a 5.0 right now, and she’s fabulous. Do you teach different philosophies or a different way? Or I guess the better question is, what’s the best advice you can give to the different levels, from 2.5 all the way to maybe 4.0 to 4.5?

Karen 8:22
Yes, there’s definitely different advice, and I could probably say three or four things on each. But what I find most helpful if I’m teaching somebody who’s just starting, a 2.5, and this is true for all levels, obviously, is: have fun. That’s my biggest advice. It’s a game, and there’s so much more than just the tennis. But for the 2.5s, I’m going to say really make sure you learn good technique. It doesn’t have to be great technique, it doesn’t have to be perfect, but if you can start learning with the right grips and have a decent swing path, you’re not going to be limited in how good you can get. So spend the time. If you take a lot of clinics, you might not get that individualized attention. I would rather you take one or two lessons a month, but learn good technique, and that way you won’t be limited in the future. For my 3.0s, it’s keep the ball in play. You’re going to win that match if you can keep the ball in play, and learn how to play the net then, right? You don’t want to get to a 4.0, or a good 3.5, and go, “Oh, I wish I’d learned how to volley.” Learn it then. For the 3.5s, I would say start learning your weapons. Start being able to put your overhead away. Have a decent first serve. When you get a high volley, make sure you can finish the point. The 4.0s kind of have all of those things. That’s why you’re playing 4.0. So for the 4.0, it becomes more mental: being able to adjust your game plan and not go away mentally. When I look at the difference between the 4.0s who have just gotten there and the 4.0s who are going into the 4.5s, they don’t come off the court going, “All they did was lob me. I can’t play that game. If they had been a little bit better, I’d have beaten them.” By that time, they know you have to beat all types of players, and that’s why you’re playing that level. So many times I hear these girls come off the court and they’re like, “I just wanted to hit the ball.” Well, today wasn’t the day that you were just going to be able to hit the ball. Today was a day that maybe you needed to lob over Sally’s backhand and come in behind it and do something different, because what you were doing wasn’t working. So that would be my glossed-over version. But at the end of the day, it’s such a great sport, and we have to have fun, and we’re not making any money playing. And there are the friendships and the things that happen, and especially in our town, the tennis world is small, so carry yourself well. Good sportsmanship. Don’t argue over line calls, don’t be that person, because it carries with you, and that is what makes people quit the game, when it gets more negative than positive. And the positives are so big and so fun. Like I told you, we just played the Cup and we got so much rain, but we still had so much fun. Our last match came off the court at midnight, and then we had to be back out at the courts at 7:30, and we’re tired, but it’s fun. It’s the friendships and everything that goes around it: the exercise, the endorphins it releases, and the social side. So that’s my advice to everybody: be good out there. Be a good person.

Carolyn 12:11
Don’t be a jerk.

Karen 12:15
For goodness’ sake.

Carolyn 12:17
So thanks again to Karen for coming on the podcast. We’ve included more information about her tennis 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 court soon.

The post Ep. 337: Tiebreak Mental Tips and Best Advice for Levels 2.5-4.0 appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

We are thrilled to have Rebel Good join us! Rebel has been officiating tennis for over 30 years and has officiated US Opens, Olympics, Davis Cup and Fed Cup events.  He writes the Court of Appeals Column for Tennis Magazine and the Stump The Ump section for Western Wake Tennis Association.  Click on Stump The Ump to read a few interesting situations! 

We are replaying a few of our most popular episodes and this was one of them!

You can watch part of our conversation with Rebel on our YouTube channel here.

Here’s a complete transcript of our conversation:

Tennis Officiating and Rule Clarifications, Part Three

Carolyn 0:05
Hi guys, this is part three of our conversation with Rebel Good. He does the Court of Appeals column in Tennis Magazine and has officiated U.S. Open events, Olympics, and numerous Davis Cup and Fed Cup events. I feel like after talking to him, I’m finally starting to understand when you call a let versus claim the point. But here is part three. Can I do the next one? Because I’ve actually had this one happen to me too, which is: can you ever call a foot fault in adult recreational tennis?

Rebel 0:34
Before I answer it, let me ask: have you ever tried?

Carolyn 0:38
No, I haven’t, but someone wanted to call it on me.

Erin 0:43
Oh, and we had another guest on, and someone called it on them in a match tiebreak and they lost that match.

Carolyn 0:52
He hit an ace to make it 11-9 or something like that in the match tiebreak, and the guy goes, “Nope, that was a foot fault. Second serve.”

Rebel 1:03
Gotta admire the chutzpah there.

Erin 1:05
Exactly.

Rebel 1:07
Okay. This is an item in the code that I happen to disagree with, and I’ve written about it in my column. Basically what I’ve said is that any unofficiated match in which a player calls a foot fault on their opponent is going to end badly. That’s all I can say. It’s going to end badly. There is a provision in the code that says if you have warned your opponent about their foot faulting, and you have sought unsuccessfully to get an official to come to your court to deal with it, and the foot faulting continues and is egregious, then indeed you can call a foot fault on your opponent. But that’s a pretty lengthy process in itself.

Carolyn 1:57
Yeah, that seems like a really high standard.

Rebel 2:00
Well, the suggestion that I made in Tennis Magazine, and boy, did I get some feedback on it, was this. If your opponent is foot faulting egregiously, and let’s remember, most people in recreational tennis are not serve-and-volleyers, so they’re not really getting much of an edge, if any, from the foot fault. But if they’re not just stepping on the line, they’re stepping into the court, all the way in, and you just feel like they’re gaining an advantage, and you have said, “I can see you foot faulting pretty seriously, you need to stop,” and you’ve gone through all that, my suggestion is: the next time it’s your serve, move in about eight feet and hit your serve. And when they ask you what you’re doing, just say, “We’re not calling foot faults, are we?”

Erin 2:56
Right. Was that your answer in the column?

Carolyn 3:00
Oh, that’s awesome.

Erin 3:01
Oh, that’s great. And the feedback…

Rebel 3:04
“How could you say something like that?” Well, I know it can be very frustrating to someone who goes, “My opponent is not playing by the rules, and there seems to be no recourse on my part, and they don’t seem to understand that what they’re doing is as much a violation of the rules as, you know, a bad line call.” So sometimes you have to bring their attention into focus.

Erin 3:30
I love it.

Carolyn 3:31
I do too. That’s great. Rebel, you’ve actually gone over this, but if you could just go over it one more time, because I do think this is the issue where people are always like, “What do we do in this situation?” Generally, when would you call a let versus claim a point?

Rebel 3:48
Okay. The first thing is, don’t open your mouth and call a let unless you’ve been hindered. We have people who are trying to be nice and call lets all over the place: “I thought you were hindered by something that was happening at your end of the court, so I called a let.” Or even worse, you’re standing on a court and you call a let because of something you see happening on the court next to you. You’re yelling over to their court, telling them they’ve got a let. It’s not your business. You’re a spectator of that match, and you don’t have a role in it. But back to staying self-contained within your match: don’t call a let unless you or your partner has been hindered. And once you’ve got that word out, going “I’ve been hindered,” now you dig down into: was I hindered because of an intentional act of my opponent, in which case I will win the point? Or was it an unintentional act of the opponent, or some outside force that created the hindrance, in which case we’re replaying the point?

Erin 4:51
That’s a really good way to think about that.

Rebel 4:53
You work through it. Don’t say it unless you’ve been hindered, and then work out whether the hindrance was intentional or unintentional.

Carolyn 5:01
Yeah. And if it’s intentional, it’s my point. If it’s unintentional, we replay.

Rebel 5:08
Exactly.

Carolyn 5:09
Exactly.

Erin 5:10
I like it. Simplified. I needed it simplified. Too many complicated questions, but that’s your simple answer.

Rebel 5:17
Could I add one more situation? Other than the ball spinning back over the net, it’s the one I get the most questions on. And because of the way I’ve answered it, the most complaints, you might say.

Carolyn 5:31
Oh, absolutely.

Rebel 5:32
And I’m sure this happens to you. It’s a variation of something you asked me. You’re at the net in doubles. Your opponent whistles a shot by you, and you think it’s going out, and you want your partner to let it bounce. So you yell “out,” and then it lands on the baseline, and your partner is going, “No, it’s good,” and swings and hits the ball back. Your opponents catch the ball and say, “That’s our point.” And you go, “Why?” And they go, “Well, you called the ball out and then reversed your call.” You say, “I didn’t call the ball out. I was just telling my partner. How can I call a ball out? It was in the air. You can’t call a ball out until it lands. I was just telling my partner to let the ball drop.” Well, there are, I can’t remember, a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand words in the English language, and one of them, “out,” is a call in tennis. Whether the ball had landed or not doesn’t make any difference as far as I’m concerned. If your yelling “out” hindered your opponent, i.e., they stopped play because they went, “Oh, they’re calling the ball out,” then you have to live with that. If you don’t want this to happen, use a different word.

Erin 6:49
Any other word.

Rebel 6:50
Say “bounce it,” something like that. But if your opponents use the word “out” and then play the ball as good, I would say stop play and claim the point. The other part of that is that you have to stop play. Don’t keep playing and then, at the end of the point, go, “Well, you did this.”

Erin 7:09
I think that’s what happens. People end up playing the point, and if they win the point, they’re okay with the ball being called out. But if they lose it, then they go, “Well, I was hindered three shots ago.”

Rebel 7:19
And there’s another part of that too, which is that too many recreational players call balls good. They open their mouth and say, “It’s good,” or “It’s in,” or something like that on a close ball. “In” or “good” is not a call. The call is “out.” So don’t open your mouth to tell your opponents their shot is in. We’re going to assume it’s in unless you call it out.

Carolyn 7:44
Oh, okay. That’s interesting. So people shouldn’t be yelling “in” as they’re hitting the ball either.

Rebel 7:51
No.

Carolyn 7:51
Because it may hinder the other side, right?

Rebel 7:55
Yeah.

Carolyn 7:55
It’s like saying “good shot.”

Erin 7:57
And then hitting it back. “Great shot,” and then hit it.

Rebel 8:02
And I know you’re all talking through the whole point. Recreational tennis is a sociable game, and you talk a lot, but you don’t have to talk during the points. I just see this so often, particularly with balls on the baseline, where your partner’s at the net and the player in the backcourt is yelling “it’s in” because they’re telling their partner that they’re still playing. Well, the partner also ought to just keep playing until they hear an out call.

Carolyn 8:34
We really appreciate Rebel coming on the podcast. We hope you check out our website, which is secondservepodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening, and we hope to see you on the court soon.

The post Ep. 336: Foot Faults, Lets, And The Moments That Start Fights appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

We would greatly appreciate a 5 star rating wherever you listen to podcasts!

You can watch part of our conversation with Rebel on our YouTube channel here.

Here’s a complete transcript of this episode:

Tennis Officiating and Rules Discussion, Part Two

Carolyn 0:05
Hi everyone, this is the second part of our conversation with Rebel Good. He does the Court of Appeals column in Tennis Magazine and has officiated tennis for over 30 years. If you haven’t listened to part one, we hope you’ll go back and listen. But here is part two. I hit a ball with crazy spins, so it landed in my opponent’s court, then bounced back over into my court. Is that my point?

Rebel 0:28
Well, I guess the first thing I’m going to do is ask you a question in return, which is: did anybody touch the ball? Doesn’t it sound like they did?

Carolyn 0:37
No one touched it.

Rebel 0:38
Did it bounce in your court?

Carolyn 0:40
Yes. It came back and bounced.

Rebel 0:44
I’m just going to lead you through this. You hit a shot, it landed in the proper court.

Carolyn 0:50
Yes.

Rebel 0:50
Correct?

Carolyn 0:51
Yes.

Rebel 0:52
Okay. It bounced in the proper court, and then it bounced a second time without your opponent touching it. Does that describe a winner?

Erin 1:02
Yes.

Carolyn 1:02
Yeah.

Erin 1:03
But I think the question is because it comes back to you, right, Carolyn? So she hit a winner, is what you’re saying.

Carolyn 1:15
Yeah, it’s like I’m thinking, “Carolyn, wait a minute.” You can see me drawing a circle right now, as I’m like, yeah, that’s right.

Rebel 1:22
Think about that great cross-court topspin backhand that you hit that whistled by your opponent. They never got a racket on it, and it bounced a second time, which ended the point. That was a winner, right? Well, this shot of yours that bounced back and landed in your court, bouncing a second time without being touched, that’s a winner.

Erin 1:45
I like it.

Carolyn 1:46
I like it. It’s a clean winner. That’s right.

Rebel 1:50
Now, there are other permutations from this. Your opponent can lean over the net and hit that ball before it bounces a second time, so long as they don’t touch the net.

Carolyn 2:02
Right. Okay.

Rebel 2:03
Or touch your court. And in fact, the absolute best shot for them to hit is to lean over and hit it backwards into the net.

Erin 2:12
Right.

Rebel 2:12
Oh, you couldn’t get to it at all.

Erin 2:14
Yeah.

Carolyn 2:15
And that would be their point. That’s the thing.

Erin 2:17
Yeah. So, the one-in-a-million time that shot actually happens. It has actually happened to me once, so it may never happen again.

Carolyn 2:23
It happened to me too.

Rebel 2:25
Now, the other thing is your opponent can run around the net. Isn’t that crazy? Say that ball is off on the sideline. The opponent can run around the net to play it, so long as they don’t touch the net or your court.

Erin 2:40
I see people do that, going down the line, but they really end up going around the net pole. Logically you would think that’s out of bounds, but I know that’s a legal shot, and I see it happen all the time. It’s extremely hard to defend against because you don’t expect it to happen, but it’s a great shot. Carolyn, do you want the next one?

Carolyn 3:05
Oh, yes. This one actually happened, so I wanted to hear.

Rebel 3:09
Let me just say one thing with regard to your question about a ball spinning back over the net. Some variation of that is the most popular question that comes to my column. Really. I only answer a very few questions in the course of a year in the magazine, but I get hundreds of questions a year, and that one subject makes up the most of them.

Erin 3:37
Yeah.

Carolyn 3:38
Okay, so this one actually happened to me. My opponent hit a shot in doubles, and my partner said “great shot,” but I was able to run and hit it back, and the opponent played it and hit it into the net. My question was, did they win the point because my partner said “great shot”? Or did they lose the chance to claim the point when they actually played the ball and hit it into the net?

Rebel 4:03
Okay. Once again, we’re talking about a hindrance.

Erin 4:08
Yes.

Rebel 4:08
So first thing is, in doubles, you can speak when the ball is coming toward you. You can talk to your partner, “get back” or whatever it is. You’re not supposed to be talking when the ball is going toward your opponent. Now, in this situation, we haven’t violated anything, because the ball is coming toward you. Your partner yelled “great shot,” but then you were able to get a racket on it. Good for you. You hit it back. What did your opponents do? They played a shot. Okay. Were your opponents hindered?

Carolyn 4:44
Maybe, but they didn’t say anything. They actually played.

Rebel 4:47
One of the bedrocks of the hindrance rule in the code is that in order to claim a hindrance, you must stop play.

Carolyn 4:56
Okay. Right.

Rebel 4:57
And then there’s another part where we say you don’t get two chances. So if your partner yelled out “great shot,” and you got to it and hit it back, and your opponent simply caught the shot and went, “That’s our point,” you would lose. Yelling “great shot” was an intentional act. So you would lose the point because it was an intentional hindrance.

Erin 5:23
I’m giggling because I feel like half my game is a hindrance. Everything that happens to me on the court is a hindrance, only because of my skill level. That’s why I’m giggling about all this.

Rebel 5:33
But to show you a difference, let’s say you screamed out because a bee stung you.

Carolyn 5:38
Right. Okay.

Rebel 5:39
Okay. And your opponent stopped play. That point would be replayed because it was an unintentional hindrance. Your screaming out when you got stung was unintentional.

Erin 5:50
Unintentional. Okay.

Rebel 5:51
But speaking to your partner, or making a call, or yelling something is an intentional act.

Erin 5:57
That sounds good. Okay, I feel like the more we ask these, the more obvious they should be, but I’m going to ask it anyway. Is it a let if your opponent’s racket falls out of her hand?

Rebel 6:10
No. And not only is it not a let if it falls out of her hand, but we have seen instances where a player serving will swing at the ball and their racket goes flying toward the opponent or whatever. There’s no hindrance allowed. The basic bottom line on this is that a player without a racket in their hand is at an extreme disadvantage.

Erin 6:38
Oh, that’s funny.

Rebel 6:39
And they’re not going to get bailed out by a let. But at the other end of things, the opponent has to keep playing.

Erin 6:48
Right. Well, it’s like someone falling on the court.

Carolyn 6:51
Because it is sometimes distracting to the opponent. If they hear the racket fall out of their hand, it kind of throws them a little bit.

Rebel 7:01
But remember, there’s a big difference between a distraction and a hindrance.

Erin 7:07
Right.

Rebel 7:08
There are all kinds of distractions that we have to deal with on the tennis court that are not hindrances, like you poaching.

Erin 7:15
Right. Like when Carolyn wears pink, she’s always distracting me when we play singles against each other.

Carolyn 7:22
Yeah, Erin asked me not to wear bright colors when we play. So I guess that could be something.

Erin 7:28
Yeah, that’s a hindrance. Carolyn, you take the next one, the foot fault question, because I know this has happened to you. We just did a podcast on it.

Carolyn 7:35
Oh yeah. Oh, well, can I ask the one: is it a let if your opponent’s hat falls off?

Rebel 7:40
It can be. Okay, here again, this is a totally unofficiated match, so it’s just you and your opponent.

Carolyn 7:48
Yes.

Rebel 7:49
Your opponent cannot hinder herself.

Carolyn 7:52
Right.

Rebel 7:53
So if your opponent’s hat falls off, she cannot stop play and get the point replayed. Okay. But if you see her hat fall off and you stop play immediately, you would replay the point. Now, there are all sorts of things that come into play if you have an official for a match, where they’re warned not to let it happen again, and they could actually lose a point when it happens subsequently. But in a match without officials at all, the answer is that their hat can fall off any number of times, and all that’s going to happen is you’re going to get a let if you want to stop playing. Now, if you want to keep playing because you’re in a good position, or they’re going to have to dance around their hat, you might want to go ahead and keep playing. That’s the point: the opponent can’t hinder themselves.

Erin 8:44
Can I ask a question based on that? I used to think, and now I’m thinking I don’t really know the rule, that if a ball fell out of your pocket, it was an automatic point for the opponent whose ball it didn’t fall out of. But it sounds like it’s another one of those things, like a hat falling off. A ball falling out of a pocket would be the same.

Rebel 9:07
One of those rules where you’re telling me, “I always heard.”

Erin 9:11
Yes, exactly. I’m bringing it back to the beginning, Rebel.

Rebel 9:15
Yes. No, a ball falling out of a pocket falls into the same category as a hat coming off during a point. Now, to go into some weird stuff, if that ball falls out of your pocket and rolls into the net, you’d lose the point, because if anything you’re wearing or carrying ends up touching the net during a point, you lose the point.

Erin 9:40
That’s a good thing to know. So the net happens and then it flies out. We’ve got to remember, we’re going to write this down.

Carolyn 9:49
Because if so, that’s my point. That’s really interesting. I had never thought of that one before.

Erin 9:54
Yeah, that is interesting.

Carolyn 9:56
Thanks again to Rebel for coming on the podcast. We have one more episode where he discusses when you call let versus claim the point, and an item in the code he disagrees with. We hope you check out our website, which is secondservepodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening, and we hope to see you on the court.

The post Ep. 334: Weird Points In Tennis appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.

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You can watch part of our conversation with Rebel on our YouTube channel here.

Here’s a transcript of our conversation:

Tennis Officiating and Rules Discussion

Carolyn 0:07
Hi, this is Carolyn, and I’m here with Erin, and we are thrilled to have Rebel Good with us tonight. He does the Court of Appeals column in Tennis Magazine, has officiated tennis for close to 30 years, and has worked in more than 20 U.S. Open events, two Olympics, and numerous Davis Cup and Fed Cup events. He also does the Stump the Ump section for Western Wake Tennis Association. So we’ll ask him some questions about himself and then do a lightning round of quick rulings to see if we can stump the ump. So, Rebel, can you tell us how you started officiating tennis?

Rebel 0:40
Sure. Back in the mid-80s, there was a tournament that happened to wander into our small town of Elkin, population about 4,000, and they needed some officials. And so several of us volunteered and we got the training to be officials, and then we just went on from there. And it was at a time in the USTA when you could actually move up fairly rapidly if you applied yourself to it. And so within about a year and a half, two years, I was doing professional events and then the U.S. Open.

Erin 1:12
Oh wow. Yeah, that’s amazing.

Rebel 1:15
Perhaps it was just that they were desperate, but you could move along pretty quickly.

Erin 1:21
I actually watch pro tennis, and I see a lot of officials that I’ve seen at Fed Cup and ones that just travel all over. So did you do some traveling too?

Rebel 1:31
Yes, I’ve been very fortunate. As she said in the intro, I worked the Olympics twice, Barcelona and Atlanta. I’ve worked in New Zealand and Bermuda and Canada, and then, you know, all over the United States. My first U.S. Open was in 1989. And this past year, I did my last U.S. Open. I’ve officially retired from the pro world, but that made five separate decades that I officiated at the U.S. Open. So I thought it was a good time to call it a day, like about three minutes before they fired me, because they aren’t using line umpires anymore at the U.S. Open.

Erin 2:08
Gotcha. So I have another question about that experience. Did you ever get nervous officiating? Again, I watch a lot of pro matches, and I know there are certain players that like to yell at umpires, and there were obviously players back in the day, like McEnroe, who were famous for doing things like that. Did any of those things happen to you? Or did you feel like a certain match might go that way based on who was playing?

Rebel 2:34
No, I was never nervous because I never made a mistake. Ever.

Erin 2:39
Kind of like adult rec tennis. Me too. Yes.

Rebel 2:44
You know, it’s like anything else. You just learn from your mistakes. You have to be able to put things behind you. And I will also say this about the players. By and large, the players are wonderful. They are understanding, they make mistakes themselves, and they are understanding of officials who make mistakes, most of them.

Erin 3:01
That’s good. Well, turning that into adult rec tennis now, which is what Carolyn and I play, we are never going to be good enough to have officials, unfortunately.

Carolyn 3:10
I wish we could get court officials.

Erin 3:12
Yeah. We’ve gone to states a lot of times and we’ve asked for officials, and they say, no, we don’t have enough people to send an official to your court. So we have to line judge for our opponents, which Carolyn and I always talk about. Of course, we want to win the match, but here we are being the judge of our opponents, of whether their ball’s in or out, making calls. So can you give us any advice on that?

Rebel 3:40
Well, what I would recommend is that you download a copy of the rules of tennis and the code. You can get the Friend at Court rule book from the USTA website, or you just Google Friend at Court and it’ll come up. Download the PDF. And I would highly recommend reading the 31 rules of tennis and really getting into the code. And I say this because too many people learn the rules, or the ropes, so to speak, from other players, and I guarantee you that they’ll get it wrong. My experience with answering all these questions for Tennis Magazine or Western Wake or whoever is that people will start off by going, “I was always told,” and then they’ll tell you some quote-unquote rule that just doesn’t exist.

Erin 4:33
Yes.

Rebel 4:34
So I would say, go to the rule book. It won’t take you long. It would take you about half an hour to read the rules of tennis and the code. And then just remember when you’re out there on the court that the bottom line in an unofficiated match is courtesy and honesty. And so you always give your opponent the benefit of the doubt.

Erin 4:53
Agreed. Carolyn is actually very good about knowing the rules. We’ve done a couple of podcasts on reading the rule book.

Carolyn 5:02
I love reading the rules. I love it. I think everybody should have the rules with them so we can quickly flip to the page if there’s a question. But I think I’m one of the few, because I don’t know anyone else who actually carries the rules with them. But that’s really great.

Rebel 5:17
Most people I know just have my phone number.

Carolyn 5:20
Oh. Can we get that out of the room?

Erin 5:23
See, now we have your phone number.

Carolyn 5:25
Yes, yes. We can be like, hold on one second, let me text Rebel. We know Rebel Good.

Rebel 5:31
Go right ahead. I mean, if there’s a beer riding on it, you’re going to want to get an answer.

Erin 5:36
Exactly. That’s great.

Rebel 5:38
Tennis is, you know, a simple game with very few rules, but there are so many combinations and permutations that can end up making it so interesting.

Erin 5:48
Yeah. So we have a lightning round of questions that we’ll just throw out at you, if you don’t mind throwing back some answers. I’ll take the first one, Carolyn. Okay. So an opponent called the ball out and then said it was actually in. Do you replay the point, or whose point is that? This has happened to me a lot, so I can’t wait for this answer.

Rebel 6:13
Well, this is black letter law, you might say, in the code, in an unofficiated match, which is of course what you’re talking about. And that is, if a player reverses a call from out to good, they lose the point.

Erin 6:26
That’s what I thought.

Rebel 6:27
It’s not replayed. One of the things as officials is you want to avoid replaying points as much as possible. I know I’ve told you that courtesy is a bedrock of recreational tennis, but it can be carried to an extreme where you’re constantly replaying points when there’s no necessity to replay them.

Carolyn 6:47
Yeah.

Rebel 6:48
Calling a ball out and then correcting it to good and then getting to replay the point is just not a good procedure. It allows someone to basically call every close ball out, then reverse the call and get to play the point over again.

Carolyn 7:10
Right.

Rebel 7:11
When you’ve already hit a good shot.

Erin 7:12
So I was the receiver and my opponent hit a serve and I called it out because I thought it was going to be out, and then I saw it in and I said no, and I reversed it, and I said, “That’s your point.” And my partner said, “No, we replay it.” And I said, “But I’ve already conceded the point to them. I called it wrong.” And she said no, we play, and she stuck her foot down, and everyone just went, “Okay, we’ll play it over.” But I felt like that was clearly their point.

Rebel 7:41
Stick to your guns.

Erin 7:43
See, I was willing to stick to my guns, but my partner stuck to hers even more. And so at that point, we just let it go. And the opponents did as well.

Carolyn 7:52
So Erin, do you want to do the next one too? Because I think that happened to you. This has happened to me.

Erin 7:57
Yeah, specifically. So when we’re playing a match, a bat actually swooped down as I was getting ready to hit the ball and missed it. Can you claim a bat let, or any other? We’ve also had someone say a bee got in my way. Can you call a let on a bat or a bee?

Rebel 8:13
You can try. I had a feeling this was going to come up. What I’m saying here is people use the term “let” as though a let is a thing, and it isn’t. A let is a call. Let is a call that says, “I’ve been hindered.” So the bottom of that is the hindrance. If a bat swoops down and you stop play and call let, you’re telling your opponent, “I was hindered by that bat.” Your opponent goes, “What bat? I didn’t see a bat.” What bee? What gnat?

Carolyn 8:50
Yeah.

Rebel 8:51
Then you’re making a request to replay the point. You’re not asking that a point be given to you, you’re making a request to replay a point. Most people in recreational tennis will give you the benefit of the doubt the first time.

Carolyn 9:08
Right.

Rebel 9:08
But if the bat hit you, there’s no question there. Then there’s a broad gray area of how close the bat has to come to you to actually hinder you. Or do you just see a bat flitting over the top of the court and you go, “Ooh”? So it’s common sense. The bottom line here is that things that happen off the court, so to speak, can’t hinder you. If a car drives right beside your court and backfires loudly, if cars even backfire anymore, or some yahoo in the car screams at you…

Carolyn 9:53
Yeah, and we have fire trucks coming by us that go down the road.

Rebel 9:55
Yeah, okay. So the fire truck comes screaming by with its siren blaring, and you stop play and say let. Your opponent might say, “Why? It didn’t bother me.” It’s something off the court. It’s the same as when we have officiated matches and we have spectators: a spectator yelling out during a point is not a reason for you to replay the point. Even if they’re yelling “Miss it!” while you’re in the middle of your backswing for an overhead.

Erin 10:25
That’s a really good point.

Carolyn 10:26
We have to remember that if there’s a spectator doing it, there’s nothing you can do. If the person on the court is doing it, that’s different.

Rebel 10:32
Well, that’s a different thing, and I will get to that in a minute. But once again, every time you’re talking about saying the word “let,” with the exception of a service let, which is something entirely different, it always has to do with a hindrance. And so the first question is: who was hindered, and how?

Erin 10:52
Yeah, that makes sense.

Carolyn 10:54
And there are degrees. That’s interesting too. A bat that hits you is different than a bat in the air.

Rebel 10:59
Right. And there are also degrees of whether a hindrance is created by an opponent, where you’re making a decision about whether it’s intentional or unintentional, or whether it’s something apart from you and your opponent. And of course, a bottom line there also is you can’t hinder yourself.

Carolyn 11:18
Thanks very much to Rebel for doing this. There is a part two to this episode because we had so many questions for Rebel. I’ve also included in the show notes a link to his Stump the Ump section for Western Wake Tennis Association, which I think every adult recreational player should read. If you’d like to see a picture of Rebel, please check out our website, which is secondservepodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening. I hope to see you on the courts and until next time.

The post Ep. 333: Stump The Ump For Rec Tennis appeared first on Second Serve Tennis Podcast.