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Strategy Lesson of the Week

Handling the Lob Return in Doubles:
Part 2: Defending

By Monty Basynat, TennisONE Editor

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In Part 1 of the lessons focused on how a doubles team should handle the lob return, I focused on how to prevent a team from lobbing the return. In this lesson, we'll focus on what to do if your opponents' lob return is successful. Why spend so much time focusing on this one subject? Well, the lob return is one of the three basic options for the returner in doubles. The other two are: 1) your basic crosscourt reply; 2) down the line towards the net person.

Option number three, lob over the net person's head, is a very good tactic and unless your team knows how to respond, it can cost you the match. In many instances, successful the lob return allows the returning team to move from a defensive posture to an offense posture, as it enables the returning team to come to the net while the serving team must retreat to the baseline (or assume a one up/one back position, which is inherently weak when facing a team that comes to the net).

How to react to a successful lob return depends on several variables, including:
  • What the receiving team does after the lob (comes to net or stays back).

  • How penetrating the lob return is.

  • What the server does after serving (comes to net or stays back).

  • Whether your team has to handle the lob return from the forehand or backhand side.
The dynamic interplay of all these variables is what makes doubles such a great game-in many ways, a different, more complex game than singles. The doubles team that more quickly and intuitively understands how these variables are working, will be the team that will make the best shot selection and usually win the point.

In Part 2 of these lesson, I'll discuss how your team should defend your opponents' lob return strategy.


As I reminded you in Part 1, the serving team in doubles should try to maintain its inherent offensive advantage of serving by serving and coming the net. So if you like to serve and come to the net, you should continue to pursue this strategy until the returning team proves it can successfully defeat that strategy: in this instance, by successfully lobbing over your net partner's head.

If you are a serve-and-volley player, a successful lob return will generally throw you into a defensive posture. As the diagram shows, you, as Player #1, will be heading to the service line after your serve and a successful lob over your partner's head will force you to quickly reverse your body momentum and scramble back to the other side of the court.


Since you usually are beating a hasty retreat to handle this lob return, you should be thinking of hitting a defensive shot in reply in this situation. If Player #4 is coming to the net after lobbing, you have the following options: 1) chip or slice a return at the onrushing feet of Player #4; 2) lob over Player #3; 3) lob over Player #4. The advantage of hitting a defensive lob over your opponents is that this allows you and your partner more time to assume a better court position and set up for the next shot. If your lob is good enough, it may even allow your team to come in and regain control of the net.

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