How to pick a doubles partner

I’ve played on many doubles teams over the past 30 years and seen some fine parings and some poor ones.  What makes a good paring and how do you select a good partner?  I ask it this way, because many times the selection we want isn’t necessary a good paring.

As captain of the team, I would always ask each person to give me the two people that they felt would be good partners for them.  My purpose was two-fold.  I wanted to see who they liked and where they felt they ranked in the group.  See, invariably people gravitate to the better players.  More times than not a lesser player would assume that if they could partner up with the stronger player, they could have a good chance of winning.  Many times it doesn’t work out that way.  Here’s why:

Stronger players and weaker players tend to play different style games and move differently on the court.  A stronger player playing against a balanced team can’t cover up for his partner’s weaknesses.

When considering a partner, you need to consider:

– Personality

– Style of play

– Skill level

Let’s look at each of these.  Personality:  A good paring has partners that have a similar demeanor on the court.  If you have a hyper, aggressive type playing with a passive type, you’ll quickly find contention building between the two.  Mostly, because the aggressive one will be frustrated with the passive one for not being more active.  Personality has a lot to do with whether you like another person.  If you don’t like your partner, you won’t enjoy being on the court with them time after time.  One match, sure; but not over the full season.

Style of Play:  Do you serve and volley on every point?  Do you attack the net at every opportunity?  Or, do you like to stay back and hit ground strokes, rather than volleying?  A balanced team moves together on the court.  It’s difficult for a player to be at net and constantly wonder where his partner is on the baseline.  If he looks back, he is taking his attention and preparedness out of the field of play.  Playing one up and one back periodically is not what I’m referring to.  Every point starts this way.  It’s where you naturally gravitate to once the point is underway.

Skill level:  On every team there are players with different skills.  You need to match your skills with another similar person, so you are matched against similar opponents.  As with each of the other considerations, skill level can be a frustration for the partner.  If you have a weak volley, yet want to partner with an attacking partner, you won’t be successful.  If you don’t have good control of your depth on lobs and this same partner is trying to attack the net, you’ll get them nailed by the overhead.  Skill level has to match up with style to be effective.  If both partners can’t execute the needed shots, then it’s not a good match.

I’ve seen many players be frustrated by the pairing that ultimately made sense in the overall team makeup.  What they need to do is take an honest assessment of their game and work on the areas of weakness to reach the level they need to make their desired goals.  After all, there’s always next year.  You can be the one that everyone wants to play with.