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Net Notes: Can you handle the hot seat?
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When you are the serving team in doubles, you are initially in command of the point.
The server should place the serve to the opponents' weakness and the partner near enough to the net that a poorly played return can be spiked or placed away for a winner.
As the receiving team, your primary task is to return the ball back to the server, who is a good distance back from the net, or perhaps still at the baseline. That task is accomplished by hitting a nice angle cross-court or by lobbing over the server's partner on the return of serve.
All that sparkling theory aside, quite often the return is misplayed to one degree or another and the server's partner gets a big juicy setup at the net to put away.
This is where the proper positioning in the "hot seat" comes into play.
The receiving team must have a way to stay in the point and survive that initial errant return.
If the returner's partner is up close to the net, the entire center of the court is open for the serving team's putaway shot.
That position compounds the problem of the badly placed return and will most surely result in the loss of the point, without much of a fight!
A better position for the returner's partner is back from the net, far enough to cover the center T if the opposing net player cuts off the weak return and attempts a spike.
At the professional level, you will quite often see the returner's partner all the way back at the baseline in order to avoid being hit by the putaway attempt (the tactically correct shot, by the way) and try desperately to keep the ball in play.
The correct positioning at the beginning of the point insures the receiving team a fighting chance in every point of a match and makes them a tougher team to beat.
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Howie Burnett is a member of the United States Professional Tennis Association and tennis director at the Island Country Club on Marco Island. Burnett welcomes questions on strokes, tactics or etiquette. To reach him, call the tennis shop at 394-4464 or e-mail him at islandclubtennis@hotmail.com.
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