The placement of your serve in a doubles match determines the amount of court that you and your partner are required to cover.

Look carefully at the section of the net the ball must cross to land in the court on a service return in doubles. A ball served to the center service line with a reasonable amount of speed (it doesn't have to be 120 miles per hour to be effective) must be returned over the center 50 percent of the net in order to land safely back in the serving team's court.

The restrictions that serving target places on the receiver enables the server's partner to virtually abandon covering the alley and drift toward the center strap to intercept the return as it crosses that center area of the net.

Conversely, a ball served wide that isn't played with devastating power or hideous spin forces the server's partner to move well toward the alley to cover the shot over the far edge of the net, and also invites the returner to play a sharp angle crosscourt over the very lowest part of the net and quite possibly out of the reach of the server.

The very best doubles players play to the middle as an ongoing discipline, beginning with the serve and continuing throughout each point they play, until or unless their opponents err in their positioning and can be exploited with a low risk and high benefit shot selection.

Playing to the center is a gold mine, so why not begin every point you can working the vein right there in front of you.

Howie Burnett is a member of the United States Professional Tennis Association and tennis director at the Island Country Club on Marco Island. Burnett welcomes questions on strokes, tactics or etiquette. To reach him, call the tennis shop at 394-4464 or e-mail him at islandclubtennis@hotmail.com.

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