very happy to add to the confusion here, but the way i understand it at the beginning of every game the serving team can decide which one of their players is serving.
That is correct
When I understand correctly, serving with doubles goes like this
a1 > b1 (a team swaps sides)
b1 > a2 (b team swaps side)
a2 > b2 (a team swaps sides)
b2 > a1 (b team swaps side)
a1 > b1 again etc.
I do find it a little more hard to follow the variable names, so let's give the players names.
Am I correct that a1 never serves at b2, b1 never serves at a1
Timo and Patrick play against Marcos and Hugo.
When the decision was done who will begin with serving:
SET 1
- the serving team can choose who will serve first.
- the receiving team can choose who wants to receive first
Let's assume Timo chooses to serve first and the receiving team picks Hugo to receive first.
Timo will serve twice to Hugo. The score is now either 1-1, 0-2 or 2-0
The general rule to remember is "
change position when you have served twice", so Timo has served twice now and will move over to the left, leaving Patrick to be the one that has to receive now.
Next general rule "
when you have received twice, you will be the one to serve next without changing position", so Hugo who has received the first two serves of Timo will now be the one to serve. Hugo will serve to Patrick. Another rule:
You only ever serve to the same person inside one set. So Hugo will always serve to Patrick in Set 1 and in Set 3.
After Hugo serves twice, he changes position, so Marcos is in the receiving spot and Patrick who did receive twice is now the one who is going to serve twice (to Marcos now).
...
SET 2
- the receiving team "changes", which is to say that Marcos and Hugo are the team serving first now. They can choose who of them wants to serve and the opponent (receiving team) of Timo and Patrick have to adjust, so that neither Marcos will serve to whom he served to in the last set (which was Timo) nor Hugo is serving to Patrick.
The rules allow you as a single player to have only one opponent player to play to and receive balls from per set.
So in Set 1 Timo will receive (not only serves but also serve returns and consecutive balls) from Marcos, while Patrick will always receive the balls played by Hugo. You can more easily get a feel of how this player plays and dont need to change that inside a set/game.
Or does one have to remember the player setting for the second game.
You just have to remember, that you will serve to the person that you did not serve in the last game/set.
Or is this something strategically to exploit.. like a1 is very good in receiving side spin serves so he makes sure he always receives from b2?
You can not exploit that outside of the first set where the receiving team can decide who receives from what opponent first.
