Several years ago I thought about writing a book that specifically talked about doubles strategy from the viewpoint of older players. I've been playing tennis for well over 30 years. I've taken private lessons once or twice a week for over 12 years, and read every book I could get hold of about the game of doubles. I've played USTA League Tennis ever since it was sponsored by Volvo in the early 80s. League tennis emphasizes doubles. 75% of the players in the adult leagues play doubles, and 100% play doubles in the senior and super-senior leagues. But browsing through the bookstores, you find that 80% of the books are written for singles players, and many of the remaining 20% spend little time on doubles technique.

Another shortfall of tennis instruction books is their failure to understand the limitations of senior players. Tennis instructors don't seem to have a lot of experience dealing with the shortfalls of older adults either. (To be fair to the instructors, seniors don't listen as well as they should when they're taking lessons, but that's another story.) While youthful players can be molded into skilled athletes, senior players are more set in their ways, and take a lot of time to get rid of flawed techniques. While we're at it, let's admit that us Seniors are a bit hard headed and not willing to try things we aren't familiar with. This book tries to fill the learning needs of seniors. It presents a summary of the things that can improve the doubles strategy of senior players who are stuck in the 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0 ratings.

This book will spend very little time trying to improve your tennis strokes. Strokes are something that are more appropriately worked on in private lessons. In addition, at the age of 50 or 60, it's difficult to change strokes that you have been using all your tennis life. Most older players can benefit most by learning good offensive and defensive strategy. They can also learn techniques that can re-gain them the quickness that they had in earlier years. If you can master a few of the lessons and techniques in this book, you will be on the way to winning more points in your matches. Think about it. When a game goes to deuce, you have played six points. If you had won just 16% more of those points, you would already have won the game. In any tight match, winning or losing depends on just a small margin of difference between you and your opponent. Isn't it worthwile to take a couple of hours to learn a few facts that can help you win that extra 16 percent?

This started out to be a book on tennis strategy for seniors, but after several reviews by older players, I realized that seniors are too impatient to read a lengthly instruction book. Consequently, I have condensed everything to the bare essentials, so it can be read in less than a couple of hours.... near our attention span limit. I hope you will take the time to read it all, and most of all, I hope you will learn as much from reading it as I did by writing it.

Also, in the process of publishing this book... er... pamphlet, no trees have been destroyed to put it in print. The book is stored electronically in a central location, with world-wide access to everyone. We hope that you will not blemish this idea by trying to copy or print this material. Save the earth.

Next, 1 - The Basic Stroke