Welcome to this double strategy, number two, make sure you watch double strategy number one, where we've talked about the correct movement on the court to put yourself in position to attack in this video, we're going to talk about targeting.

This is probably the second biggest mistake that I see a lot of players making that if you can change it, it can really dramatically change your ability to be a successful doubles player. Now, when I talk about targeting is where should you aim when you have the opportunity to attack? 

Most players aren't finishing points, not because they don't have great volleys is because they're resetting the point, giving their opponent an easier shot to get back. So what I mean is this most players, when they have the opportunity to finish a point, they get excited and they go back at the baseliner really hard and then it usually comes back. Why? Because the baseliner has the most amount of time to react to the ball. 

This is a mistake in targeting unless you're in trouble. That's when you want more time. We'll go into that in a second. Now, if you do have an opportunity and the ball is above the net and you have more access to the court, meaning that you're moving forward, where do you want to go? You want to go to the person who's closest to you.

 So what that means is you want to attack the net player, but you want to attack the net player in a special way.You want to attack their feet. Doubles comes down to really one thing, which means getting your opponent to hit up so you can hit down. As long as you can do that, you will control doubles. And so what this means is when I have my chance to attack, I'm going to go after the center T. 

Where my opponent should be if they're in a defensive position, if they're not there, it's great because you have this huge opening gap that you can go through. But if they are there, you're going to go to their feet. 

Now it just doesn't stop there. And this is where most people get hung up. They hit this ball and then they think they're done. You're not done because you need to now follow it, follow up your work and finish it off. So as I hit the ball to their feet  I want to follow the direction of my shot to continue to close off because you have to understand they don't have time and so they want to buy time, gain more time.

So guess what? They're going to try to do? They're going to try to go to my baseliner to get more time. And what I want to do by following is close that gap, meaning that as I hit the ball to them, I'm going to follow across to anticipate the next ball and keep the pressure on them.

And that's the key to being very, very good at doubles. Now all this comes with one caveat: it's understanding is the ball high or low, and you might be asking why does that make a difference? Well, it makes a huge difference because when the ball is below the net, I now have to hit up. 

And if you remember what I just said a second ago, doubles is about one thing, making your opponent hit up so you can hit down. So in this position, when the ball is low, I don't want to hit up to the net player, so I want to take the ball and hit it back to the baseliner. Buy myself more time compared to when the ball is high. I want to take time away from the net player and attack their feet and follow up and keep the pressure on.

Now there's a lot of different situations that can come up, but if you remember this general principle about being low and high, it will really save you in so many situations. Just like if I poached and the ball's low, do I want to continue taking it to the net person? No, I want to actually take it back to the baseliner to buy more time.

And it's so important that you understand this because this is the number one mistake that I see so many players making that they're constantly taking high balls and hitting it back to the baseliner giving the baseliner plenty of time to lob it back, and they're not taking the ball to the net person. 

And what they generally think is the problem is I need to hit a bigger volley, and that's not the problem. You need to have better targeting. Now there's time for action steps. The number one thing we want to focus on is having the correct targeting when we have the opportunity. 

So that's the only thing we're going to focus on right now because I see this so many times in a match that players have this opportunity and they send the ball right back to the baseliner resetting the point. 

We don't want to do that. So the number one thing that I think most players have to reprogram themselves is to go at these T or the net player's feet and then follow. So how we're going to do this is set up a ball machine or have a friend feed you a ball slightly in the middle of the court. 

What you're going to do is just move over, attack the position, but make sure you follow the ball and be ready for the next shot.

This is a great way to train yourself to follow up and finish, follow up and finish. So you have these things going on where you're targeting, following up and finishing. So here's how it's done. Attack the position, follow up and finish. 

So we're gonna do it one more time. We're going to attack the position. Follow up and finish now to take it to the next level where I have my partner, dude, or you can have a ball machine do its after you follow up and finish, then you're going to get one more ball and then you're going to put that one away by continuing to put the pressure on. 

Realize this If you're the net person on the other side and you've just been attacked, you're already on defense and then you want to keep attacking them so many times again, you get that next ball and you try to go close to the sideline. Don't do it. Keep the pressure on until you get a really easy bowl, then you can put it away.

So I'm going to follow up, boom, follow up and finish and then keep the pressure on. Get used to this type of movement when you're playing doubles. So again, we're going to attack and finish and keep following the ball regardless of where you hit that second ball, keep staying in front of it because the more you stay in front of it, the more time you can take away from your opponent and they can't get out of the trap.

So in summary, no one you have to understand the principle is the ball low or is the ball high, because that really will dictate what you can do when the ball is low. You want to gain time because you don't want to be the person hitting up and having someone else hitting down. So when the ball's low, you gain time by hitting to the person who's furthest away from you.

 Number two, if the ball is high, you want to attack the person who's closest to you. But don't just attack and think that the points over attack and follow. 

Which leads us to number three, follow up and finish. So many players hit one great volley and they think they're done and the ball comes back maybe a little bit over there and they think that's a great shot. But if you follow up and finish, even if they do hit that short ball on the other side of the court, you're already halfway there. 

And most of the time it'll come right back to you and you're already there. This is a great way of anticipating the next ball based on what you've done. You've hit the ball where they have to hit up and then you can hit down, and that's how you become a powerful doubles player.