How to Poach in Doubles (Doubles Tactics Explanation & How-To Guide) | Before & After Tennis

hey everyone today I want to talk about when to poach in terms of what you should be looking for on the other side of the court with what your opponents are doing then I also want to cover how to poach and this really ties into the technique how you should be moving where your eye should be and then we'll also talk about probability and how it really ties into poaching and making move in doubles and I encourage you to think about making a move and poaching in doubles through the lens of probability and we'll cover that in just a little bit so let's go ahead and we'll take a look at this footage we'll play it in half speed I was lucky enough to get footage of Casper Roode playing with I think I'm going to butcher this name it's rri ieri and they're playing Donna vage and Ivan doic on the other side now Ivon dodig along with Austin kek is currently the best doubles player in the world so I think Austin kry is actually ranked number one and doig is number two but as a pair they sit a top the rankings at the time of making this video so let's talk first about when to poach as the returners partner dodig is looking at a few things the first thing he's looking at is what is the server's partner doing he's looking at a carry right over here and notice how his eyes are on a carry what you sometimes see with Club players recreational players is their eyes go all the way back to their partner and really you don't want to be swinging your head back and forth that way you want to keep your eyes looking forward in general and then the more you do it the more more you'll become comfortable reading the cues of your opponents and how they're moving and based on that you can make decisions on where to move and where to poach so rude gets a decent serin now vage does a great job of Defending with you know she's got her open racket face so that could have potentially been an opportunity to poach for I car but now watch what dodic does watch how his eyes go from iary to tracking the ball and then tracking rude one of the first opportunities that you should be looking for to poach is if you're playing a pairing who is serving the server lands inside the court like rude does here but they're not serving and voling because if veic lands the ball you know she's landed the ball maybe let's take a look maybe 4 feet beyond the Baseline even there Roode he has to back up to make the hit so rude is moving back this way and this is where the probability of poaching really comes into it let me set these windows up and then we'll talk about it okay many times when I speak to players who are new to doubles or they might even have been playing doubles for a while one of the fears that they have is oh what is it going to look like if I get passed down the line or if I make a mistake when I'm poaching and really no one at a higher level of doubles is worried about getting burnt because it's all about probability it's going to happen sometimes where you're going to get passed down the line where your opponent hits a great shot down the line or he or she perhaps catches it late and the ball goes into perhaps this right window over here but in this scenario I want you to think about probability Roode is backing up what are the chances that he's going to hit the ball through this white window here versus the red ones they're pretty high they're pretty high if you were a betting person you would say he's going to hit through this white window and yeah I'll give you the caveat as players get better and better their targeting becomes way more exclusive and maybe rude is able to get it consistently through here but if he's backing up you have to take that risk or gamble to go forward and make a move in this window the other time that you should be looking to make a move is let's say if you're engaged in a crosscourt rally let's say if rude and veage are engaged in a crosscourt rally and if veage is able to land the ball anywhere here if vage is able to land the ball deep and make Casper Roode back up behind the Baseline that's also an opportunity for the player in dotting spot to make a move because again think about it in terms of probability which window is the player more likely to hit through it's that white one yes they may look to get it towards the borders of that white window but they're still more than likely going to get the ball through the main window of the Court the next thing I want to talk to you about is how do you do it how do you make a poach so Roode gets a serve in notice that doig's eyes are just on iary here as soon as he realizes iar's not making a play on that ball look at how he moves he's moving forward Ward straight away he's tracking the ball and I believe this is really where something important happens he's identified that this ball here is going to be causing Casper Roode to move back it's going to cause Casper rude to move backwards and you know talking about when to poach we just spoke about that that's an opportunity for you to make a move now I want you to pay attention to how he moves he's going to move forward first and then to the side many times I see recreational and Club players when they make a poach they go straight to the side if you go straight to the side you're going to open a large window for your opponent to pass you through you know regardless if you're at the 35 4045 50 level the pass will become a little bit easier if you make the move to the side too early which is where I want you to watch how doig moves okay we'll take it back just a few frames the ball has cleared I car now look he's moving forward forward and now really the time to make the move sideways is when your opponent is just about to strike the ball when the opponent's racket is falling and they're about to strike the ball that's when you make the move to intercept okay and now look at what he does with his technique so well so because he's moving forward he has a momentum source of power which is one of the sources of power on the volley the other one is the speed of the incoming ball okay so he's stepped off his left foot now he's set his right foot and now look at his racket you can actually see his racket face you can see his strings here they're pointing towards the target why do I want to point that out it's because he just has less calculations to make to get the racket face into contact okay so it's almost like he's taking a wall straight to the ball and notice that he's pushing off his right foot his left foot is in the air when he's making contact and then all he has to do is he just has to push the strings outwards to the target which makes this really an effective textbook poach so I'll summarize it really quickly the serve goes in the server's partner doesn't make a play on the ball the returner puts the ball deep enough that the server moves back which is a sign for doig that he needs to make a move he goes forward he's waiting until the opponent's racket starts to fall and then he goes to the side he Pres presents the strings to the Target he steps and pushes and that's what makes this really a fantastic poach to emulate so there you go hope that helped with when you should poach in terms of what are the signs you should be looking for then how should you do it how should you be moving what are the patterns of movement you should follow and hopefully that conversation about probability and thinking about probability of where the ball will go will help you to be a a little bit more aggressive when it comes to your doubles play

Channel: Before & After Tennis — Malhar Mali

Views: 18,053

Keywords:

Id: d9BL7eRig_U

Length: 9min 33sec (573 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 18 2024