How to Beat the #1 Doubles Team in the World – A Strategy Lesson on Serves, Returns, & Rallying: Podcast 049

How do you beat the #1 doubles team in the world?

I wrote a blog post on the topic last month and today, I’m going to go over that information with you in audio and video format. What you’re going to hear is a real WTA scouting report that pro doubles teams have used against the world’s top doubles team.

Although the data is specific to this team, the ideas can help anyone looking to improve their doubles strategy.

Since the 2021 WTA Finals, Krejcikova and Siniakova have been the top doubles team in the world, even winning the Australian Open without dropping a set until the finals.

To create these scouting reports, which have successfully taken two sets off of the pair, Tennis Analytics provides me with the data that I aggregate, parse, and use to find patterns.

This will be a three-part series, with a return video following this one before ending with a video about rally strategy.

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Show Notes from this Podcast

Here are some of the things I mention in this podcast episode:

• Blog version with all the data: How to Beat the #1 Doubles Team in the World
• The Video Lessons
  • Serve Strategy
  • Return Strategy
  • Rally Strategy
• Serve Strategy
  • Focus on 1st serves first.
    • Location: Wide, Body, T
    • Formation: I-formation or regular formation. See my video explaining different serve formations for doubles.
    • Error Rate: I get the forehand and backhand error rates which can support the serve location data.
• Return Strategy
  • What formations do they use?
    • Deuce: I-formation or regular formation.
    • Ad: I-formation or regular formation.
  • Location: Wide, Body, T. Which location do they typically serve to in each formation? on each side?
• Rally Strategy
  • Net: Who is the weaker net player? How can we keep the strong net player at the baseline?
  • Baseline: Who is the weaker baseline player?
  • Player: Who is the weaker player at net? at baseline?
  • Position: What is their favorite position during the rally? 2-up, 1-up/1-back, 2-back. How can we prevent it?
  • Matchups: How can we match up our strengths against their weaknesses?