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This one is for anyone who plays front in doubles and keeps getting beaten by fast, flat shots. Two changes, both of which I have made to my own game recently, and both of which improved my court coverage more than any amount of extra footwork drilling did. I show both in the clip with actual rally footage, so watch that alongside this — the positioning one is much easier to see than to describe.

Change one: stop trying to kill everything

I used to think that if anything came remotely near me at the net, I had to kill it on that first shot. That is a very common way to think about front court, and it quietly wrecks your game.

My thinking now is simpler: my job is to not let shots get past me. That is it. If I can kill it, great. If I cannot, I play it flat or slightly downwards, keep the pressure on, and aim to finish the rally in the next three to five shots instead.

That single shift dramatically improved my consistency, my presence on court, and how effective I actually am — because I stopped forcing myself into compromised positions and stopped manufacturing impossible angles out of shots that were already too flat to attack. Those attempts were not winning me points. They were producing errors.

Why this works, in plain terms

Consider what a kill attempt on a flat shuttle actually costs. It has a low chance of landing, and if it misses you have handed away the point outright. Even when it does not miss, a rushed kill from a bad contact point usually pops up something your opponents attack. A flat push back, by contrast, almost always lands, keeps your opponents under pressure, and leaves you in position to attack the next one from a better contact point.

You have not given up on the point. You have moved the finish a few shots later, into a situation where you are far more likely to win it. Front court is not about being spectacular. It is about being unavoidable.

This is not an argument for playing safe forever

You still have to take risks as a front player, and I said so in the video — there are moments where I go for an around-the-head interception that is a bit too fast and a bit too ambitious. The rule is about defaults, not absolutes. Default to the safer shot, and take the risk when the percentage is genuinely in your favour, not when the shuttle is arriving flat and fast and you are reaching.

Change two: the front of the court is basically out

This is the one that surprised people in the comments. The area in front of the service line — that whole strip once the serve is done with — I treat as effectively out of play. Look at how doubles actually gets played: once a rally is live, shots almost never land there, because everything is travelling fast and flat.

Take the clearest example. Someone smashes at you and you are defending. Try placing that defence in front of the service line. It is close to impossible — the smash arrives fast and steep, so you would need extraordinary touch to pop it up, and the result would be a high, slow arc that any competent front player puts away instantly. So the defender plays the easier, safer shot: block or drive it back fast and flat.

Exceptions exist — a net shot in a slow exchange, a deliberate tumble — but during live fast rallies that strip is dead space.

So stop standing on the service line

If that area is functionally out, there is no reason to stand on the line guarding it. Position yourself one to two steps behind, close enough to still reach the line when you need to.

The reason is simple mechanics: stepping forward is much easier and faster than stepping back. Standing on the line means every fast flat shot has to be handled by retreating, which is the slowest thing you can ask a body to do mid-rally. Standing a step or two behind means the shots you actually face come to you, and the rare short one is an easy step forward. You can see it in the clip — when shots do end up in front of me, stepping in is comfortable.

How to drill both of these

For the mindset change, play games where you are not allowed to kill from below net height at the front — you have to push flat or downward and win it later. It feels restrictive for about ten minutes, then your error count falls off a cliff.

For the positioning change, have someone feed you fast flat drives from mid-court while you stand one to two steps behind the service line, mixing in the occasional short one so you practise the step in. The goal is not to win the exchange — it is to notice how little you have to move when you start from the right place.

Common mistakes

Drifting back onto the service line as soon as you stop concentrating. Treating the flat push as a defensive shot rather than a pressure shot — it should still be going somewhere awkward. And confusing patience with passivity: the goal is still to finish within a few shots, just from a position where you can.

The takeaway

Do not get passed, and do not stand on the service line. Two changes, no new technique required, and both available to you in your very next game.