Okay, so triples tennis sounded weird to me at first. Three people on each side? How’s that even work? But my buddy Mike insisted we try it last weekend when we had six folks hanging around the courts with nothing better to do. Honestly, I figured it’d be chaos.
Grabbing Gear & Setting Up
First things first, we needed an extra court. Our local park’s got these old concrete courts, and we snagged two side-by-side. Taped down some extra baselines with duct tape – looked trashy, but who cares? Standard tennis balls and rackets, nothing fancy.
The “Aha!” Moment With Rules
Mike printed out this crumpled rule sheet he found online. We circled up like confused penguins while he explained:
- Team Setup: Three per side. One player hangs back near the baseline (the “back” player), and two plant themselves up front by the net (left and right “net” players). Felt like setting up a tiny soccer defense.
- Serving Shuffle: Only the back player serves, rotating sides each point like normal tennis. But here’s the kicker – the net players cannot return serves! Saw Jen almost whack a serve return before remembering – she got roasted for that all game.
- Wild Rebounds: After the serve, any player can hit any ball. That’s when the madness started. Balls rocketing everywhere, me yelling “YOURS!” while running into Steve. Absolute clown show.
- Scoring Stuff: Regular tennis scoring, win-by-two-games. We played first to six games since our legs were dying.
Total Chaos On Court
First few points were disastrous. Steve kept camping in the no-volley zone, Katie tripped over the taped line, and I whiffed three overhead slams in a row. Felt like herding cats. But once we stopped crashing into each other, patterns emerged:
Net players became vultures for weak shots. Back player (usually me) was just scrambling corner-to-corner like a maniac. And communication? Critical. Shouting “SWITCH!” when someone poached a shot saved us from about fifty collisions.
Why I’ll Play Triples Again
Totally hooked now. It’s exhausting but hilarious – like tennis with a shot of espresso. You’re never just standing around. Plus it’s golden when you’ve got odd numbers. My takeaways:
- Talk constantly. No ego – yell positions or switch sides ASAP.
- Embrace chaos. Miss a shot? Who cares. Just reset for the next weird bounce.
- Stretch after. My hamstrings are still screaming from all the side shuffling.
If you’ve got six people and a free court? Try triples. Just maybe warn the folks next door – we were way too loud laughing.