It’s been a rollercoaster ride for doubles over the last month. From superstar pairings, Olympic selection drama, and a controversial new innovation, what does it all mean for the future of doubles, and what lessons can be learned?
At the recent ATP tournament in Washington, a new innovation was announced for the doubles tournament.
In a world-first trial, players would wear microphones on court in an attempt to “enhance the fan and broadcast experience, while also amplifying the profiles of the players.”
The initiative had mixed reviews from players and fans alike.
Although Ben Shelton favoured it, he didn’t want any part of it himself.
“For me, I like my career! I can be a wild card at times,” he said.
“When the mic is right there, anything can happen. I’m going to keep those thoughts and under-the-breath sayings to myself.”
During the week Sebastian Korda, his doubles partner Alex Michelsen as well as Harri Heliovaara and Jamie Murray took part in the trial.
Heliovaara, ranked 11 in doubles and a recent Wimbledon champion, was a fan.
“I think we need personalities, more stars in the doubles part of this game and the microphones are a great way to make that a little easier on court,” he said.
Since I missed the matches myself, I was excited to see the ATP had a 90-second highlight of the players mic’d up. I tuned in and was really quite underwhelmed.
Were players censoring themselves? Or did they just not have many entertaining things to say?
The whole initiative, though well intended, felt a little… desperate.
Olympics furore and victories
While Washington was experimenting with microphones, a series of controversial Olympic selections had doubles players unimpressed.
Although the top 10 doubles players were given a place at the Olympics, it was still up to their national bodies to select them.
World no.2 Horacio Zeballos was not selected for Argentina nor was world no.10 Nicole Melichar-Martinez for the United States.
Then Desirae Krawczyk was overlooked in the mixed for the lower-ranked Coco Gauff.
Many doubles players felt the selection process was flawed and overlooking doubles specialists was highly disrespectful.
And perhaps they were right to complain.
The teams who had doubles specialists or highly-ranked double players won gold medals in all events including our own Matthew Ebden and John Peers.
Age isn’t helping
There’s no doubt that doubles is the poor cousin of both the ATP and the WTA tour.
Matches have already been reduced to two sets and a match tiebreaker for most tournaments and the attention on players doesn’t even compare.
However, it can at times be a hard sell.
The average age of a top 10 male player is 36 and on the women’s side, it’s 30.
Now, age isn’t everything but it’s a little harder to market 44-year-old Rohan Bopanna compared to 21-year-old Holger Rune in lucrative younger markets (no offence to Rohan!).
More worrying for the men’s side, there is only one player in the Top 50 who is under 25 years old, and that player (Tomas Machac) is literally no.50.
The women fare better with three in that age bracket including well-known players Coco Gauff and Leylah Fernandez.
It’s not the game
Fans aren’t against the game of doubles, it’s that they don’t feel a connection with the top teams of today.
When players they care about compete, they pack stadiums and tune in.
Kyrgios and Kokkinakis drew crowds never seen before at the Australian Open.
While Nadal playing with Ruud and Alcaraz recently, got fans tuning into a first-round ATP 250 doubles tournament for potentially the first time.
The Woodies, the Bryan brothers, the Williams sisters - the list goes on.
When fans are invested in a team, the players involved, or what’s at stake (Olympics of team events), they watch and they care.
What can be done?
Three things need to be done to help save doubles.
The game needs to be open to innovation
Doubles has already seen changes to the scoring system and this recent attempt at being mic’d up.
Even though I’m a traditionalist and not a fan of the mic situation, the game must continue to evolve and try new things. Some things will stick and will no doubt help interest in the game.
Market the players
Social posts and videos from the ATP and WTA give the most rudimentary promotion of doubles players.
This needs to be dialled up to not just be about results but the people behind the game.
The social videos that have introduced us to so many Next Gen players over the years can be applied to doubles. We need to connect to them and they need to play on big courts so we can care about what happens to them.
Attract more players
Not enough younger players of either gender are playing doubles. The tours could consider a Next Gen race of doubles teams under 25 for example.
Get more people playing, incentivise them to do it, and bring their younger fans into the doubles game, not just singles.
Time is ticking.
As the game looks to evolve in terms of prize money, funding sources, and the tour set-up, the game of doubles and its players can’t be left behind.
It’s a marketable game that fans have shown over and over again that they love, but only when they have a stake in it.
Without a concerted effort from the tours and an openness from players (and traditional fans), the game as we know it today may disappear.
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