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The results you achieve on the tennis court are directly related to your technical skill set, your tactical sophistication and your willingness to marry the two in a way that produces the outcome you are striving for.

Some players are willing to play a match and take pleasure in the individual shots that they were able to execute to win a point.

Others are solely focused on winning the match without regard for sound technical or tactical execution.

The stage of competition is available to all manner of player and when you are choosing a doubles partner be sure to choose a player that reflects your philosophy as well as a player at roughly the same NTRP level .

If you pick a high level shot maker who can whip one hard in the corner to dazzle the onlookers but refuses to use the lob to structure the point properly, you have chosen the excitement and glory seeker rather than the player who derives satisfaction from engineering each point as a team with the purpose of winning the match.

Don’t be drawn in by the excitement seeker bells and whistles, but rather place value on your potential partners decision-making process and his or her desire to involve you in the point-winning process.

Doubles competition can be very rewarding if both players have the same view of the ultimate goal and structure their play to maximize the talent and tactical sophistication that their partner brings to the equation .

Sure it may be exciting to blow one by the opposing net player to win an occasional point but the real satisfaction is to blend two players into recognizing one goal and then maintaining the personal discipline to play the game not just hit the fun shot !!

The choice is yours excitement or satisfaction!!

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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.