Born2WinTennis wrote:

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It's strange this culture of doubles tennis in the UK. Competitive doubles players at clubs usually play a practice night at their club and get roped into county league matches, but rarely do anything else. There's no circuit of doubles tournaments. Surely tournaments should exist to support this. It's great to see the Jamie Murray series of tournaments due in summer, hopefully that might spur on some further tournaments. I'm a massive singles fan, but I would rather people play doubles than play no tennis at all.

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 I was one of those players for 30 years, doubles only,  mens in county league, mixed league. Mid week, one club night. Those who wanted to play more competitively had plenty of local or county doubles events to play, in Yorkshire we had decent events at Heaton, Huddersdield  Horsforth,  Chappel Allerton, Ilkley from may through end of summer. Anyone really strong would play division 1 and get onto county squads and training. It fulfilled our needs , I got plenty of tennis. Whether it served GB tennis is another matter 

difficult to have a different (negative) opinion on this site and to oppose the diety LTA. I unfortunately can only see this as the LTA attempts to make something good out of the bad situation they find themselves currently surrounding British tennis, players produced and results achieved. I cannot admit to having watched the Aussie Open extensively, however remember very little mention of British players, perhaps the only day being that Dan Evans won a match.


It is true, there are so very few actual "doubles" players, they are mostly singles players who take it up because of the money involved and more "difficulty" to reach money earning level in singles. This is why we see can even Djokovic and Nadal play doubles in some masters tournaments solely because of the money available. As far as the players and being "powerhouses", Davis Cup semi-final 2019, Murray and Salisbury (I haven't researched it, and could be wrong saying that they are both top 10 doubles players in world) couldn't beat two singles players in a doubles match, my personal opinion is that the last few matches I have seen him is he has by far been the weakest player on the court, however if you play enough grand slams with solid partners etc success will likely appear. Naturally you would not see a random unknown doubles player be able to rival any of the top ten singles players in the world. 

Considering all, perhaps Britain should turn its hand towards producing doubles players? As is probably more success guaranteed than they would have producing singles players. Had a good chuckle at the Judy Murray being a good "spotter of talent", women knew enough to send her child to a Spanish tennis academy, this makes her know about tennis how I ask? Still seeing her on Strictly though, very clever

-- Edited by junior on Wednesday 5th of February 2020 06:23:39 PM

Hi Indiana

Many thanks for correcting me, I was offered a ticket to watch that match, plus my boss was team captain on the other side of the field however couldn't make it. I'll point out a few things:

"Regular partnership" of Murray and Skupsi, as opposed to Rafa and Feli who don't play together all that much. I (I've been involved in tennis my whole life) would struggle to get past naming 10/15 ranked doubles players. 

The case study: With respect to Feli (he's very much deserved it no one can deny) he isn't a doubles player, he has done amazingly well throughout his career considering people assumed he was just another player with only a serve. Quite a few Spanish guys have had success in doubles without amazing attributes (Carreno, granollers etc) and as amazing as Rafa is, having a game based on winning the point from behind the baseline and struggling with his serve throughout his career, to assume he would have the same level doubles attributes (serve, returns, volleys and reflexes) as grand slam doubles champions? I've run into Marc Lopez a few times and know several people who know him well personally, definitely agree he's a doubles player, perhaps Spain's only male one I can think of. 

The other British tennis doubles match I remembered was the ATP cup vs Australia, I think they had 5 mp's, and the two gs champions (salisbury and murray) couldn't finish the job vs krygios and de minaur. Krygios being as undisciplined as they come and De Minaur appearing to lack strength in his shots. 

There's a long list of sporting parents who claim or try to use their childs success to further themselves as coaches/sporting personalities. (Tomic, Tsisipas, Zverev, Gauff) are some of the recent ones I see. My opinion is that there was no one else (women involved in british tennis) to take the job, especially who might have had some experience in competing to a high level like keothavong (maybe sam smith who is more commentary) or maybe Jane O Donaghue, but thats an old name and she was coaching a junior girl last time I ran into her a few years ago.

Obviously anything Murray related will be pinnacle British tennis for years to come, even if they do ignore guys like Pato Alvarez etc, or where geographically Murray has a court named after him. However, anything that encourages people (especially girls) to be involved in tennis is a positive so let it be

On the side point of test cricket attendances, I quite like test cricket but the fact is too many test grounds are too often pretty empty including most certainly India and also the West Indies. It is a concern. 

In both those SF and QF at DC and ATP, we could and should have won, respectively. Jamie's gimme at the net at match point, unforgettable. It must be said though that the GB dubs is now very important in these new format and having strong partnerships critical for success in these international events. They were not far off beating these top line singles and I think that if J&N can win a slam and Joe playing more with other GB players that might be enough. They dispensed with all but top line singles with relative ease, so GB does look strong in dubs.

Certainly not a pointless thread, moreover it is the key to international tennis success. More GB pairings on tour would be a great thing to follow for the casual fan and more in the nation.

"Should have won": they didn't. All these strong partnerships crucial for success you talk about? They're not strong partnerships if they can't get the job done (against singles players who play doubles and together much less than our specialists do, also who within the competitions such as Davis Cup have played 4x as many matches as our "strongest doubles players in the world". A Davis cup team needs only 2 doubles players, in some cases (like when Andy played with Jamie) one player. Or maybe we should field 4 doubles players to assure (depending if we can in fact beat the singles players at doubles) the doubles point. No back-up singles players or look to finish the rubber with the singles matches and avoid the gruel of deciding doubles match, I might be wrong. 

"They dispensed with all but top line singles with relative ease, so GB does look strong in dubs" Depends what you consider top line singles? they look like they've got strength in numbers, maybe not as much level. 

As far as the casual tennis fan, doubt that instead of watching Eastenders they'll be scouring through the maze of Sky Sports and BT Sports channels to find a doubles match which may or may not include someone they might vaguely recognize and forgot about soon after. I'm sure this exactly what the LTA was looking for with their millions and milions invested in schemes and such forth to try and encourage the casual person or sports fan to be active, maybe better to invest into Touchtennis or Pickleball and see if that also helps boost tennis participation numbers (those were ironic, however using wheelchair tennis might be a plausible idea).