 What you guys asked me was tactics for playing on different surfaces. Now, when you guys play away, most of the courts are hard courts, astro, not so much grass and clay. Lots of hard courts. So, difference between surfaces, mainly, is the way the ball bounces and the way that you need to position yourself according to the bounce. So, obviously, if we're playing on a quicker surface, like an astro or a grass, the ball tends to bounce a lot lower, therefore quicker. So, if we're playing on a slower surface, like a clay or a hard court, the ball bounces higher and slower, so we've got a bit more time. With that in mind, because the ball's bouncing higher, we need to be a bit further away and position ourselves further back than we normally would. And on a faster surface, like an astro or a grass, actually, we need to be a little bit closer, because the ball's not bouncing up as high, so we're going to have to take it earlier before the ball drops. So, that's the key with different surfaces. Was there any other questions around surfaces that you wanted to talk about? There was a question on the hard courts, like you said, the back. So, it's actually in your face. Yeah, so in that case, it's very difficult. And what you tend to find is players that are used to playing on those courts are very good at taking the ball on the rise. Whereas, actually, we've got the luxury of having nice big backdrops at the back, and actually, we don't have to take the ball on the rise. We wait for the ball to drop, which is easier to do. Much tougher to take the ball on the rise. So, it's something that we can practice. Lots of the time, you'll find yourself, when you have a shorter backdrop, you're having to take the ball really high up here. We'll take it early, and it's out of your comfort zone. So, it's just something that maybe we need to practice a little bit more of. But most clubs tend to have a bit more space. And if they do have space, you've got time to get back, let the ball drop, and hit it at a nice comfortable waist type, or slightly higher. Okay, but yeah. Good question. It's the match at Stubbingston. And it was a hard court, and it was bouncing right up here. And they're all used to it. And I was in the face. Well, I didn't hit it. The only thing really you can do there is take it early, and try to take it before it gets too high. So, you know, as it's rising at waist height, not letting it get too high. So, in that case, actually, you do need to stand closer to the bounce. But it's very tricky. Cool. So, that's just a brief overview of services. We can bring it into our practice in a minute. We'll talk about it. Next one is how to play to own strengths and not let opponents dominate with their style. So, what you really need to do in this one. So, when we're talking about our own strengths, are we talking about the way we play as a pair, or are we saying that our strengths are like a forehand and a backhand? What did we mean by that? We prefer, I think, like, lower attacking play, don't we? Yeah. Some of the clubs, like... Moon ballers. Yeah. Okay, okay. And then we probably get frustrated, and they get caught into that looping. Yeah. Try to finish the point off quickly. I think, in general, it's probably safe to say that we all, when we play against better players that hit the ball well, hit the ball hard and aggressively, it actually brings the best out in our game, doesn't it? So, we can actually play good tennis because the ball's coming at a pace, and we can redirect it really well. The one is the moon ballers when it comes in very, very slow. The only thing you can really do about that is not get sucked into it. Try to hit the ball at a comfortable height. So, like we said, if you've got time, get back, let it drop, and hit your normal strokes, rather than fighting to try and hit the high ones. Hit it at a more comfortable height, and if you feel confident, take it early, but it's a tough one again. Playing against the moon ballers, the only way you're going to do it, coming into the net is another good way of playing against those players, because when they're hacking the ball up and up, their job is to try and keep you back. And if you can come into the net and get your racket behind the ball, obviously, a volley, a shot is going to kill the point. They're going to give you a few smashes, but if you're confident in that smashing, absolutely fine. And they do tend to just lob it back. Lob it back. Well, we're not particularly tall, are we? No. Well, it's not that. It's not that. Even when it's back twice. If our partner was the one in the front, and say I'm at the back, and then they lob it over my partner's head, and then I go to that side, take that ball, my partner then goes across to the other space. Should that partner then come back a step, sort of like towards here, rather than staying closer to the net? If I'm here, volleying. I'm in the back there. They've lobbed me. Even comes across to cover me. We shout switch. Now, some people shout switch. Sometimes you can just see, but if you need shout switch, it's good to shout switch to make it clear. Some people would just stay there. Once that shot's gone back, we can see if that's been a really good lob, then actually, this player will come in. If you've hit it well when you've covered me, you'd come in, and I would come in too. If you've hit a really weak shot, that's when I would go back. So it all depends on how that shot is hit. Good loads of questions. Okay, here's another question then. So next question. I was quite far away from the net here. I was stood here. Are we all happy with how close to the net we should stand when we're playing? Okay, just a quick one then. So I tend to say, don't ever stand behind the service line when you're the volley player. Don't even stand near the service line. We want to be in the service box. I notice quite a lot of us stand back here. The risk of this is the ball coming and landing at our feet. So ideally, if we're in a neutral situation where neither of the teams have an advantage, so it's just kind of like a rally, the volley player should stand halfway up in the box. Because this way, you're close enough to the net to attack, and you're far enough away to give yourself enough time. If your partner behind you hits a really good effective shot, and they're under a bit of pressure, you're going to move into the first quarter of the service box to be ready to kill the point. If your partner hits a weaker shot, you'll move to the back quarter, to about here, because it gives you more time for them to hit their faster one-cutting shot. So during the point, your position will change. If they've hit it really well, move in, look for intercepts and hit the volley. If they've hit it really weak, move back and be ready for a more defensive shot. The priority is to win the point, isn't it? So although you can see the line better, I would focus on what you're doing to hit the net shot, rather than worrying so much about calling the ball. Of course, that's important. On the clay course, we can see the bounce after which it's flying. Here, you can still see the line, so I would prioritize playing a good point over worrying about calling the ball in and out. You'll be able to call it. If you're playing singles, that person's got to call it the shots anyway. So it's just a nice thing having the line judged, but your priority is playing the point as opposed to being the line judged. So I would stand in here. Going back to the previous point, you were standing in the middle, and your partner would have played the shot, and it goes sort of like high, sort of like towards the back. Would you stand back because you think they're going to smash so that you get more time? Or would you stay sort of like closer to the net because it was a good deep shot? So if you were playing against Ingrid, Ingrid to blast a 150-mile-hour smash, so no, depending on who you're playing against. If you were playing against Andy Murray, stand back. So just gauge the opponent. Yeah, another good question. I'll quickly go to the next one here. It's good that you've got... It's just knowing your opponents, really, and you get to know them in the warm-up. You'll see what their strengths are. Some of them will be really powerful hitters, some will be more defensive players. That was the next question. How to cope with serial lobbers and where to stand. So that one we were talking about. Send them to prison. If you can, come into the net because it cuts things out. It forces them to hit a really good lob. If they hit a weak lob, you'll have an easy smash. If they hit too hard, they'll go out. Send them as uncomfortable as possible. Don't just lob it back because that makes it very easy and you'll get caught up in what they're doing. So if you come in and there are the lobbers... Yeah, don't come in close. Stand. Just stop them lobbing you again. So when you come in, when we say come into the net, because we're expecting it to come up high, they've not in the past been very good at hitting drop shots or mainly high shots. We can stand back a bit further and ideally we want to actually bring them in because they're probably quite comfortable just chipping it away at the back. If we bring them in as well, it's going to take them out of their coupler zone. You can't lob when you're at the net very effectively. It's much easier to do it at the back of the court. I think it's reading the tennis racket on your opponent. Whether it's an open racket face or whether that's... If I was watching you hit rather than just watching your racket, I know that if I've hit the ball really, really well you can only hit a short ball and if I've hit it shorter it could hit it deeper. So it's just having an understanding anticipation of that. So then we say when you have two players at the net when to have two players at the net and when to have two back and when to have one forward and one back. Who likes volume? Who likes being at the net? You guys. You don't have to have you don't have to have normal formation. When we look at traditional doubles we've got somebody at the back somebody at the net. You could have two people starting at the back if you feel way more comfortable. It does give you a big advantage when you come into the net because we take our opponent's time away but if you really struggle at the net now I think we're all okay at the net so I would suggest having one back and one in the net. The person at the back if you can come in to join them as well because having two players up in the net is much tougher than having one at the back. As soon as you've got one at the back player of that end will just keep it cross court keep it cross court and it's quite easy there'll be a long, long rally. As soon as you can get into the net you can cut the points off save yourself energy, finish the point quite quickly and then turn that one. The only time I would say have two at the back is if somebody really hates going in and they're much more comfortable with that back of the court but you guys will find it in the net so I wouldn't have to come forward. Of course if you get lobbed you can both go back then but again try to get yourself back in at some point during that time. When you say one at the front one at the back say your front player is sort of protecting the the trams almost and the back player is way over there you've got a massive gap between the two players I'm going to the drill I'll do on court I'll show you where I've just done it with the last group players I'll show you exactly where you need to stand as a pair to cover all of the court without having to move so that will help when two play defensively and when to attack the rule of ten I call it the rule of ten if you're hitting a 5 out of 10 that's a rally pace so if both players are at 5 out of 10 there's no advantage the ball's going back and forth as soon as there's an opportunity for example the person at the other end hits a slower shot a 3 out of 10 then I need to hit an attacking shot so I'm going to go for a 7 out of 10 if our opponents attack and do a 6 out of 10 I'm going to match that and do a 4 out of 10 back so that way anytime they increase the speed we're looking to defend and decrease the speed and anytime they have a slower speed we look to have a faster speed so we're counteracting what they're doing at the other end if you try to attack an attacking shot that's when you miss and if you defend the defensive shot they're going to kill it so make sure you've got that nice balance of both rally until there's an opportunity attack when you get the chance don't just attack randomly try to attack when the ball comes in slower or shorter or you feel like there's a big gap in the corner there you don't always have to attack with speed attacking could just be a drop shot a drop shot is an aggressive shot because you're putting your opponent on the pressure so that's attacking defending do it the right time and the right time is when something changes in the rally if your rally's going and nothing's changing be patient and wait for the right chance to attack how to play and how to defend Australian formation so who asked that one? because we couldn't even know what it is when we play Roland's Castle they've done that to us are you talking about iFormation where they start? yes and also the girl that was serving was a left hand fin so it's an interesting one not many people do it but if they do I assume you're talking about iFormation where if my partner is serving and I'm at the net instead of standing here some players at professional level do it they'll stand here and when the serve goes over this corner see and plays on this side so then you've got a down the line rally going and then two bodies facing each other is that what they did? the girl that was serving was a left hand fin so it's really hard to read it threw you completely so the thing is as soon as they've done it once talk to your partner and the main thing is that you just get over the fact that they've changed something because it throws you do you just ignore it? try to but know that they might do it again so just to kind of because it doesn't happen often you really have to work on fighting against them like that and the standard rule is that they cover this side so don't surely everyone do it? no so iFormation what pros do is they'll signal behind their back so they either go this way or this way and it just means that they've got the option to go either side so the returner doesn't have any idea of where they should be hitting it's tough to play against them at our level I think you can probably combat it easier because they're not going to be quite a springy jumpy race just mentally at this approach it's just another tactic don't worry about it went to hit cross court went to hit down the middle and percentage shots and how to win the tie break well that's a good attitude we all know how to win tie break yeah we keep losing tie breaks went to hit cross court went to hit down the line and what the percentage shots are that links in nicely with the drill trading, rallying to get away from the net player so during a doubles point if you're rallying cross court and doing a good job of keeping it away from the body that can keep going until something changes and somebody decides to attack so that's really really good the reason cross court is also a good shot is the longer distance from corner to corner so you've got more room to hit into you're less likely to hit long it's the lower part of the net so in general in singles and doubles down the line you tend to use when you're attacking so if you get a shorter one or a slower one when we say the 3 to the 7 that's when we can go down the line to the body player because we're going to put them under a lot of pressure if they hit fast or we can attack back at the cross court player coming to the net when to go down the line if there's a big gap or if you've got a slow easy ball but percentage shots do tend to be cross court now in doubles another really good way that you guys are going to win points is by hitting it through the gap in the middle but to do that you've got to create the gap so when you're in that cross court rally we always say deep is good because if you hit a shot deep you know that eventually they're going to hit it shorter it's also going to stop them from attacking but you're not going to create any space by hitting it deep the best shot in doubles is the short cross court angle that pulls your opponent right out of the court creates a huge gap in the middle it gives you a volley player I suggest that we all practice the short to wider angles when we're in our rallies we always say deep is good because it means that our opponents can't attack and there is a risk that if you aim short to wide that it could set them up for an easy one but if we practice it we're going to get much much better at that so that's a really good effective shot especially on the forehand side it's a lot easier to do than the backhand so we're going to get into some final things about volley positions now we spoke about how close to the net and how far back we should stand but we didn't really talk about what happened side to side now we I think we all know in this group if Anne's on my team serving I'm at the net when Anne serves out wide I need to cover my line so all I do is I follow where the ball's gone so Anne will go this way I go this way if Anne serves goes down the tee to this side and the player has to move this way I can look to come across a poach and if you think of those two movements and you know where your partner is trying to serve you're going to be much quicker at getting to the volley that also happened during the rally so if the ball goes back cross court and they're rallying with Anne when Anne hits the wide ball I follow it and if the ball goes more central I'll follow it so we're constantly tracking the player at the other end as long as you're moving so Anne when she's served in a rally good question so if Anne's hit a really wide shot what is that person's options wide or wide so what we actually do is we split okay I go this way and Anne comes in slightly more Anne you say you would go across the head there you go so you go here now the reason being you're going to say there's a big gap in the middle now my normal position is here I'm getting across to cover my line I'm getting across to the tram line because I can reach the tram line from here if I'm here this is as wide as I'll go now in just one step and a reach my racket gets to here remember that person's in the corner for them to hit the shot and it travels to my furthest point that would go all the way over to here one step I've covered two thirds of the corner so Anne doesn't need to stay over here that's why she can go wide that makes sense now so it looks like there's a big gap because if you were looking from straight on there would be a big gap but when you're looking from that corner there's not a big gap so any time the ball goes really wide volley player should always cover it and this player doesn't really need to cover my gap here yes if they lob so a lob is always slow so if that person has got up that's a really good shot that they've played there Anne's quick enough to cover it so Anne would go across and I would switch it all seems a bit clear when you look at it with lines and things on the court but it's putting it into practice that makes it better you guys can come on don't mind us let's have a little practice exercise