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General doubles tips
Can't block opponent's partner
when your partner is shooting
Doubles
shot selection chart
Winning
Racquetball : Skills, Drills and Strategies
Millions of Americans play racquetball, yet
instructional material is scarce. This guide, written by a veteran
instructor (Turner) and a ranked professional (Clouse) provides
tips for both the seasoned recreational player and the novice. They
examine everything from equipment to match strategy in straightforward,
conversational language augmented by more than 140 photos and line
drawings. Readers will learn how to select a racquet and a facility;
how to condition themselves specifically for the sport; and how
to avoid the most common types of injuries. There are also excellent
tips for doubles play, mental conditioning, and gamesmanship. In
addition, the authors break the game down into offensive and defensive
skills, an approach often overlooked in racquet-sport instructionals.
A key feature is the inclusion of drills to develop the recommended
shots and strategies. Too often players just play, forgetting that
even a minimal amount of time devoted to skill development can pay
huge dividends. In areas where the sport is popular, this is the
instructional of choice.
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Serving in doubles is tricky, because the opponent you serve to has to
cover very little territory. You can try all of the serves
for singles, but focus on serves that are really hard to cut off early,
like the the nick lob, Jason Mannino half lob, Super cool soft Z, etc.
Assume that you're on the the right, serving to a right-handed opponent
on the right for most of these serves unless otherwise specified. (By
the way, this is excellent training for serving to a lefty in singles.)
Don't serve to your cross court opponent because your partner will be
in that opponent's way. Click here to
see the few exceptions to serving cross court in doubles.
Three threat overhead
Make sure that all of these three serves below start off with the
exact same position and ball toss. This prevents your opponent from
anticipating which serve is coming.
Stand just to the left of center, throw the ball down hard in the
exact middle of the court, so that it comes up at a height above
your head for an overhead shot. From this position, you have three
serves that require your opponent to take court positions that are
opposite and distant from each other. Hit all of these serves as
hard as you can because that makes it more difficult for your opponent
to hit an accurate offensive return or ceiling lob.
Overhead Z
First overhead threat: Hit an overhead Z. Ball hits front
wall, left side wall, passes in front of you (not behind you), hits
the floor, hits right side wall very close to back wall, and travels
very close to, and parallel to back wall where opponent can't get
his racquet behind it because its so close to the back wall. The
beauty of this is that the ball is too high to be in your opponent's
power zone, so if he hits it hard, it's likely to come off the back
wall too high.
I chose to have it pass in front of you so you can watch the opponent
the whole time, and your cross court opponent can't sneak up behind
you and take the ball early.
Drop the ball in the exact center, don't stand in
the exact center or else the Z will come back at you and you will
hit yourself with the ball.
Overhead drive
Second overhead threat: Having seen the efficacy of the
overhead Z, your opponent camps out right along the right side wall
to catch the ball early, before it hits the right side wall. This
is okay though, because the next serve you hit, should be an overhead,
low (well, low as an overhead will allow) drive, and go almost parallel
to the right side wall, but it should barely nick the right side
wall about 4 feet from the back wall. If the ball does nick the
right side wall, it wraps around the opponent who has camped too
close to the right side wall. But, you hit it so low, that the ball
appears that it might die, so the opponent doesn't move to the left
to get to the wrap around. Another problem is that the ball is now
so close to the right side wall, that it's difficult to have any
swing room for the opponent's racquet, so it's very hard to get
to this serve early, before it hits the back wall. Finally, to make
matters worse for your opponent, the ball, even though it may nick
the right side wall, may often not get affected by it and caroms
straight out towards the front wall like a rocket, far out of reach
of your opponent who has prepared for the ball to die close to the
back wall. Because you hit an overhead drive, its not clear to anyone
whether the ball will catch in the right corner or shoot out too
far for your opponent to chase down. Opponents get used to this
after a while, so it's mainly useful in discouraging them from standing
too close to the back right side, in a position to cut off your
best serve, the overhead Z above.
Overhead jam
Third overhead threat: Your opponent now decides to move
extremely close to the very far right and somehow try to get the
ball early, before it hits the back wall for the two serves above.
No problem: when you serve, hit the ball hard as you can right at
your opponent's body, or a bit to the left of him. The ball does
not touch any side wall. Make sure you get out of his way. Hit the
ball as high as you can, without it hitting the back wall on the
fly. The opponent usually hits the ball from his side, so when its
coming right at him, he has to move to the side. But here, the right
wall is in his way, and he has to waste a lot of time dodging the
ball (lunging to the left or right) before he can even start running
forward after it. This is fun for the server, and tends to keep
the opponent from camping too far to the right. Now you've gotten
him to position himself further to the left, and opened up room
for your best serve, the overhead Z, described above. Hitting the
ball directly at the center of your opponent's body works especially
well if the opponent is big (tall or otherwise) or slow.
Bottom line: these three overhead serve threats create a
chaotic environment for your receiving opponent. If he doesn't take
the ball early, then simply always use the Z since once it hits
the side wall, all offensive opportunity is gone. If he never ever
takes the ball early, try a soft overhead Z serve (ball thrown at
head level, contacts front wall at about head level) since this
dies against the back wall more consistently than a hard Z.
If I'm serving from the left side of the court, the ball has to
pass behind me to execute a Z serve (unless I hit it backhand),
at which point I immediately cross over to the right to give my
opponent on the left, an alley down the left side to shoot through.
One other overhead serve from the left side is a drive down the
center of the court exactly between both opponents. The goal of
this strategy is to catch opponents off guard and have them lose
time trying to decide which one of them will hit it. Doesn't work
when it's used too many times in a row.
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Regular Z then Jam serve
combination
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Regular Z serve
Stand just to the right of center and drop the ball to your right.
If you're drive serving from the right, to the opponent on the
right, you have a couple of options.
Although low, sidearm, Z drive serves are easy to cut off, they're
sometimes difficult to control perfectly, so I always try a couple
to see if my opponents hit them too hard so that the ball comes
off the back wall for an easy setup for me. Actually, the higher
the better in this case.
A regular drive Z hits the front wall, near the front wall/left
side wall corner, the left side wall, passes behind you (whereupon
you have to quickly move to the left to give your opponent on the
right a clear shot in front of him). The ball then hits the right
side wall close to the back wall, and travels parallel and close
to the back wall. The goal is for the ball to stay so close to the
back wall that your opponent can't get his racquet to fit between
the ball and the back wall (can't get his racquet behind the ball),
so he's stuck trying to swat the ball against the back wall just
to get it to reach the front wall on the fly. The only place that
opponents can hit the ball early, is just before it hits the right
side wall. So now your opponent is ready for a forehand.
Jam serve
Once you see that your opponent is positioning himself far to the
right to catch the Z early with his forehand, try a drive jam which
can be disguised as a Z, with slightly less angle than the Z, so
that it hits the front wall slightly further to the right than the
first Z does. Your aiming for this to go closer to the middle of
the court, towards your right side opponent's backhand. If he's
not ready for this, it may invoke a weak return. The ball travels
to the front wall, hits the left side wall way before it gets to
your cross court opponent, and hits the middle of the back court,
then heads for the right side wall, but hopefully dies just before
it gets there. If you hit it perfect, it cracks out on the left
side wall. Hit the ball very hard and low, so that it doesn't pop
off of the right side wall for an easy setup for your opponent.
A problem with both of these is that your cross court opponent
can take the ball early and then you're caught off guard. As soon
as he starts doing this, I move on to other serves.
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Serving to the middle of the court
Severing to the middle of the court in doubles can sow confusion amongst
your oppononents, because they can't decide who who will take it. If you're
playing against a righty/lefty combination a ball in center falls to both
of the opponents' backhands.
Straight, high lob to center of court. I don't like this because
it can be short-hopped to easily, but it may work for some opponents.
Once in a while, I'll serve an overhead drive right down the middle.
If your opponents have never seen this before, they just sit there expecting
the other partner to chase the ball, which by this time, is already out
of reach. The serve starts off looking like the overhead Z serve described
above.
Nick lob to center court. This is a serve I saw Andy Roberts use
in one of his pro doubles finals win. Stand a couple of feet right of
center, lob the ball very high, have it nick the left side wall very high
just past the point where your doubles partner is standing, ball lands
on floor a foot in front of the center of the back wall, hits back wall
and pops out a few feet from the center of the back wall. It is very easy
to hit a return for this serve, but because it lands in back court, between
you and your partner who are in front court, it's very hard for the reciever
to know where to hit the ball. Unless he hits a perfect roll out, both
you and your parnter can cover any kill shot attempts.
Exceptions to serving
cross court in doubles.
Normally it's taboo to serve to your cross court opponent in doubles,
mainly because your partner doesn't have time to get out of the way
and would invoke an avoidable hinder. There's
a few exceptions:
- When the cross court opponent is "cheating" on your Z
serve to the opponent on your side. He moves over toward the center
of the court instead of staying on the left to cut off your Z before
it gets to his partner (if you're serving from the right to the right).
In this case, if you're capable of hitting a good ace drive serve
to the far left, that doesn't come off the back wall, he will not
be in a position to reach it.
- There's an extremely advanced serve from the right that cracks out
on the left side wall/floor just behind the short line. If the ball
comes out, it bounces towards the center of the court and doesn't
go near your partner.
Sure you can hit Zs, lobs, and drives right to your cross court opponent
to catch him off guard on the last point of a tiebreaker. And you may
have given your partner and advanced signal to expect such a serve and
to get out of the way, but often these points are the beneficiaries
of the opponent hitting a weak return because he is afraid to hit your
partner, not because the serve was so good.
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