In honor of the Australian Open,
we started to explore the Australian doubles formation in
our last tennis tip. (See Aussie
Doubles) The
Australian formation is executed by the serving team and
involves positioning the server's partner across the net
from the receiver's partner.(Instead of across the net from
the receiver). The server positions themselves very close to
the center mark, because they will be covering the other
side of the court. Let's look at how to execute the Australian
formation.
1.
The server's
partner - the server's partner
positions themselves directly across the
net from the receiver's partner, in the
center of the box, about 4 feet from the
net. When the serve is struck, the
receiver will have to hit the return
down the line or slightly cross-court in
an effort to go behind the server's
partner and between them. To cover the
cross-court shot the server's partner
should close(move toward the net) toward
the receiver as they execute their
return. This offers the best opportunity
to cut off and put away the return
if it is
hit cross-court.
2. The
server - the server positions
themselves very close the center hash
mark when they serve. After they serve,
they need to immediately slide to cover
the possible down-the-line return. From
this position they have a better angle
to hit cross-court between their
opponents or rally back down the line to
the receiver.
You need
to practice this formation to learn all
the variables. For instance, the
receiver may opt to return high
cross-court OVER the server's partner.
In this case they should back up to the
service line to be better able to hit an
overhead off of this type of return.
Try the Australian formation to give
your opponents a different look and put your team in scoring
position. Good luck on the courts.
