august 2005

During the tennis boom of the ‘70s, the exploits of the doubles duo of the white-capped Frew McMillan and the bald Bob Hewitt of South Africa actually made the sports pages. Neither man was a singles standout, but they still garnered attention as a team because doubles was considered an integral part of the pro game.

Not any longer.

In one of the most obvious efforts at spin control in ATP history, the tour recently announced that it will “implement doubles enhancements” beginning in mid-September.

Ron Angle/BE Images
Mike Bryan on the changes: “We hate ‘em. A lot of the doubles guys hate ‘em.”

What the tour should really be saying is that it’s essentially aiming to get rid of most doubles specialists by ‘08, when only players in the main draw singles will be allowed to enter doubles--with two exceptions. Tournaments will still be able to award wild cards, and spots will be reserved for players with the best-combined singles and doubles ranking not playing in the singles main draw. There will be two entries reserved in a 16-team draw, four entries in a 24-team draw, and six entries for 24- and 32-team ATP Masters Series draws.

What would that mean today? Of the 20 men ranked in the ATP Team Doubles Race top-10, only three — Max Mirnyi, Jonas Bjorkman and Michael Llodra — would make it into the L.A. men’s tournament without the benefit of a wildcard. “The long-term result of the ranking changes will mean most of the doubles teams will be made up of players from the singles draw,” said Horst Klosterkemper, ATP President Europe and Player Relations.
But the ATP didn’t stop there. They also decided to change the scoring system of a more than century-old sport. Beginning after the U.S. Open, ATP doubles matches will feature no-ad games and sets played to five, with a tiebreak at 4-4.

Most players aren’t buying the changes and feel hit over the head. Even though the ATP was founded as a “players association,” it appears the men who do the work on court had little voice in the changes.

“We hate ‘em,” Mike Bryan said. “A lot of the doubles guys hate ‘em. Actually, 99 percent of the players who I’ve talked to think it’s gonna be bad for doubles and fans. People are gonna lose a lot of respect for doubles. There’s not a lot we can do with this system because the players voted against it and the tournaments passed it. It’s a pretty corrupt system.”

Todd Woodbridge, who owns the Open Era record for most doubles titles, with 83, felt hoodwinked. “I’m very disappointed with our council, so much so that I think they all should resign because they’ve gone ahead and made changes without even asking what the rest of the tennis world thinks,” said Woodbridge. “They’ve made a scoring system that doesn’t even exist. It’s not an approved system by the ITF. They’ve gone and made a decision against what the players wish. Even the top singles players are scratching their heads. It’s disappointing.”

While calling the system "corrupt" is bold, a source close to the negotiations told IT that the tournament directors were hell bent on reducing costs and knew they had the votes to carry them through. One TD who has crunched the numbers estimates that he loses two-thirds of the investment he makes in doubles players annually. "I get on average between 5 and 10 percent of people who call for tickets asking about whether a particular doubles team will be playing ," he said. "That pretty accurately reflects how much interest there is in doubles right now. If that's the case, we've been spending too much."
The so-called doubles specialists have known for years that changes were coming, because tournament directors feel burdened by what some call a doubles “welfare system,” where they are forced to house, feed and pay players who don’t sell many tickets -- if any. The ATP once tried to promote a separate year-end doubles championship, and it failed. "I told the guys at their Wimbledon meeting that they needed to do more promotion-wise and some of them weren't too happy, but they did listen," the tournament director said. "But some of them are not comfortable making public speeches. Like the singles players, most of them just want to go out and play and not have to do a lot of extra stuff, but the fact is that tournaments continue to lose money on the doubles guys and they are going to have to help stop that by doing something extra. If not, there are going to be fewer and fewer jobs for them."

It’s rare to see star singles players compete in doubles anymore and tournaments would like to have another shot at showcasing the marquee men. This year alone, men’s tennis top three singles players -- Federer, Hewitt and Roddick -- have only competed in doubles in two tournaments each. “Doubles is an important part of tennis, but some enhancements were necessary,” Klosterkemper said. “Singles players said they would consider playing doubles on a more consistent basis if changes were made.”

There are some players who do agree with the changes. “These are good,” said Rafael Nadal, who has played doubles in five events this year. “I will continue to [play doubles]. More singles players will probably do like me and play more doubles under the new format.”

But Mike Bryan doesn’t believe that the singles stars will seriously commit to doubles. “I talked to Roddick and he said he definitely won’t play doubles with five-game sets,” Bryan said. “Andy, Federer and those guys will never even play doubles, no matter what. You’re gonna see the level of doubles get destroyed. It could be four guys on the baseline with huge legs just ripping balls. Since they introduced the singles players into doubles with the new rankings, it’s all the regular doubles teams in the finals anyway.”

Next year, the ATP also will adopt an entry ranking system with doubles draw acceptance based on a player’s ranking either in singles or doubles, which ever is highest. In ‘08, only a new combined doubles ranking will be used to determine entries in doubles, counting 50 percent of a player’s singles points and 50 percent of doubles points.

For players like Mike Bryan — who doesn’t compete in singles — it will be hard to make a living. He and his twin Bob are the only U.S. team around with marquee value and actually do pack in fans at numerous locations. But at many events, doubles is played on outside courts in front of only a handful of fans. However, the doubles specialists do much of the yeoman’s work at tournament, appearing at countless clinics, and attending charity and sponsor events. But while tournament directors appreciate this, the fact is that they are using the singles stars to do appearances with their main sponsors anyway and figure they could round up some of the lesser singles players to do, for example, a clinic for a local middle school.

That's why a couple of tournament directors who are sympathetic to the doubles players' cause are being charged with coming up with a list of possible extracurricular activities the players could do at tournaments to give them added value, such as pre-event pro-ams.

Bryan blames the tournaments for the state of affairs.” They’re just trying to get rid of it,” he said. “They haven’t done anything promotion-wise. They haven’t even given it a little shot the last three years. The tournaments that do promote it, do well, like L.A. and Houston, it’s packed. It’s just a shame what it’s come to. Tennis is hurting in general and they’re just taking swings at doubles - which is a huge part of the game.”

Outgoing ATP Chief Mark Miles is of many minds on the subject, but believes that an attempt must be made to address the issue head-on. One thing he is very positive about is that the changes will also force tournaments to schedule doubles on show courts or will incur fines.

“It’s appropriate to try to make doubles more valuable to the game,” he told IT. “It should be. The tournaments will have to put more doubles on show courts and then fans get to see it more. I don’t know how much shorter matches will encourage singles players to play, but at least because it’s shorter, it will be easier to schedule doubles matches on big courts.”

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