Double Fault

The serve is the biggest weapon in tennis and also the most under utilized. If you can put in the sweat and teach yourself how to hit any point in the service box, and at different velocities, you will win the majority of matches you play. Then again, even yours truly is lacking in the motivation to smack a bucket of balls once a week. Us weekend warriors crave points. We want to battle on the courts when we make it onto the courts. It is all we think about as we slog away all day at our life jobs. At the end of the day, the only thing on our minds is our next battle. Our next thirteen stroke rally. Enough. The serve is the biggest weapon in the game, and the serve is also the most difficult and painful to master. And the most taxing mentally and physically during match play.

Over the years of playing competitive matches I, like everyone else, have hit way too many double faults. Worse than a double fault though is a poachable second serve that your opponent can rip a winner off of, or set up a winner on his or her next shot. At the recreational level the second serve wins and loses the majority of matches. Djokovic and Nadal proved that you don’t need much of a second serve if you are a freak on the baseline. Most of us aren’t the next Djokovic. So we must improve our second serves. Lets unveil a new term: the double fault quota, or the number of a double faults each of us is allowed to hit before we recalibrate our seconds. My double fault quota is two. Once I hit two, I must rip my next second serve like it is a first serve. Again, you are not going win, by lobbing in serves. You have to go for it. At the 4.0 and surrounding levels you can get away with a few lobs when your opponent makes an unforced error cracking your second, but even at these levels the second serve is crucial.

This past weekend I was battling a friend and I felt myself getting mental in one of my service games. It was a long game and he probably had three or four break points. I was so mental. Now, I have done this before and had success and it worked again last weekend. I went for a couple big serves on second serve and won those points. Next time you find yourself giving up second serves to double faults or winners, I want you to do this: tell yourself that you are going to go for it. Go for a first serve and just say screw it. It has worked wonders for my game and rescued me on more than a dozen occasions. Don’t fret additional faults. At least your opponent is not hitting a winner and gaining momentum. The momentum lies on your racket. Another double fault will hurt you less than a winner off your opponent’s racket.

With the above considered, next time you find yourself in a tense match and you’re trying to avoid your third double fault (or maybe fifth if your have a higher double fault quota than me), just rip it. Cut lose. See what happens. I think you will surprise yourself.