Mark1968 wrote:

---

Pretty much agree with what Madadman says above here. There is little good to see here other than reducing the time between points to 15 seconds, or is it 25? How farcical is that? Hopefully the 15 seconds will see an end to this pointless and annoying hand touching which achieves nothing and the back of the hand conversations that they have had a hundred times before.
Matthew Ebden sounds happy with all this but he's no.2 so he would, I doubt lower ranked players who rely on doubles as their living will be so happy. I don't have any desire to see more 'singles' players playing doubles. They pull out all the time when it suits them and the skill sets of the established doubles players is more than good enough.
As for the 'Free fan movement in the arena during play, adding convenience to the on-site experience', how disrespectful is that to the players and more so to people who want to sit and watch without being disturbed. This is a dumbing down of the spectator experience.
The only thing that doubles needs other than the 15 seconds is increased prize money, the singles players at tour level are generally paid to much. Paying a multi millionaire over £2 million to win a Grand Slam is obscene.

---

completely disagree with the fan movement aspect and it dumbing down viewer experience,viewing tennis is boring very boring, especially when compared to other sports, I think that these Changes are not enough to improve it but it definitely does Not ruin it. tennis needs to modernise instead of having backwards attitudes like yours where everyone sits in there seats in silence like its a funeral.  

But the TV companies arent interested in doubles, really, and hence why they dont include it in the contracts; and if you go across the forums like this (MTF for example) there is so little chatter about doubles tennis. They have a doubles sub forum, and apart from some guy posting a bit about the Belgian pair, there is very little interest or traffic around it.

As CD says, it is a commercial question more than anything; the singles players at the top get a disproportionate amount of money because it is a big deal - winning a slam in terms of exposure for the brand of the player and their sponsors is massive. As with the Premier Tour proposals from the Slams/Craig Tiley, 80% of the commercial interest in tennis is in the slams, and then the 1000's. The 250's and 500's have much less interest. And then at those slams and 1000's, the doubles element is a small, small part of it.

From many of our perspectives, tennis would be a lot worse off without doubles. I love doubles. But the general public don't follow it and it has little commercial viability. It wouldnt stand alone as a separate circuit if it wasnt aligned to the singles circuit.

You could argue, therefore, there are too many players trying to make a living playing doubles. I certainly think it spreads out thinly quite quickly down the list; if the singles players played doubles, would players like Luke Johnson, Marcus Willis , etc be in the top 100-150 doubles players? Highly unlikely, they would be below 200 easily. And tennis cant sustain that, nor should it really, if it cant pay its way.

We need a vibrant and interesting doubles tour that pays its way and supports the singles tour. From an interest point of view, I believe we also need singles players playing doubles - the ATP is right that people get interested by it. If that means we end up with 60 or so doubles specialists able to sustain themselves, so be it, IMO. Because if we dont, doubles will disappear as a professional sport.

The big question for me is how do they get those singles players to play in it regularly and not drop out at the last minute. Maybe to do that, the ranking system needs an overhaul in some way - like the ITF juniors, the ranking has some element of doubles points into it to ensure players take it seriously? That might be radical but maybe this needs lateral thinking - that and hefty fines, but not sure that would work in the long run with top players earning big bucks; or suspensions for players dropping out, but again the lawyers would probably challenge that in some way.

Coup Droit wrote:

---

jb288 wrote:

---

It seems weird for them to imply that 'nobody watches doubles' when half the time, the TV contracts they have signed don't even include doubles and you can't watch the doubles matches at many ATP 250 events.

---

 The TV companies don't sign a contract for doubles precisely because no one wants to watch it

And they know this from the figures they have for the few high-profile events where doubles is actually shown

(I seem to remember reading that the wheelchair finals at Wimbledon recently did far better than the doubles, probably because there was British interest, but whatever)

---

 Agree with CD here. 

In terms of wheelchair doubles, possibly the case re Alfie and Gordon. Alfie recently commented that wheelchair doubles, though, is more of a spectacle than singles. I guess because of court coverage, singles has its limitations and can appear slow at times, doubles is a much more intricate and interesting sport. Combined with Alfie and Gordon becoming a sort of brand leading pair for the sport, it garners a lot of interest compared to singles. Not sure that plays out in prizemoney for the sport, but it certainly is the case that wheelchair doubles at the top is relatively popular compared to singles. 

And , of course, at the paralympics in Paris it will get a lot of attention, where singles v doubles matters not, they all count towards a medal equally.   

Yes. But by scheduling them between the singles matches you mean, I presume, in order to encourage the spectators to watch them?
But one could argue: if the audience don't want doubles, they don't want doubles
Who are we to tell the paying audience that they're wrong?
Overall, I agree with you - re-jigging the schedule to try and promote the doubles seems a good idea to try
And other things - I like the idea of the audience being able to dip in and out - as twentyoone says, long tennis matches can be very .... long - other sports have far more coming and going and it makes it quite dynamic.
It's definitely worth trying, I think
(like on court coaching, you can always go back and remove it if it's not a success)
But I don't think doubles should be paid more, or whatever - actually I think they should be paid less.
Although the women-men parity pay is obviosuly controversial, in that it is in no way reflected in commercial reality, there is - at least - a strong policy reason for going that route
However, there's no Equality Act category for doubles players

As ever on these boards, a lively debate. One thing I would say is that no one is forcing any player to become a doubles specialist. All players play singles as juniors, but many switch to doubles because of a lack of success. So you could argue that they know what they're signing up for by becoming a doubles specialist.

Yes, doubles can be great to watch, and yes governing bodies have a responsibility to promote as best as possible, but ultimately market forces (fans, broadcasters) have to come into play. As long as they are doing everything they can to maximise the experience for everyone. But let's not beat about the bush: the singles players are financing the doubles players.

As a rule for the general population it appears that doubles is for playing, and singles is for watching: certainly if one is paying.

But there is a chicken/ egg thing about the popularity - the sponsors/ managers/ TV channels think that people prefer singles and so they schedule around that principle, which makes it harder for people to see doubles, so the doubles doesn't get watched: the doubles doesn't get watched, ergo they were right. Of course the powers that be may be right, but equally they may not, but the current state of affairs is self-reinforcing.

I think that specialist doubles players are - as Dan Evans says - players that can't make it at singles, but they have grown to fill a niche. As I recall when I was younger (from a limited personal data set, most people didn't have much exposure to tennis in the days of black and white TVs with two channels) there was no such thing, and all of the doubles players in (at least major) tournaments were singles players in the same tournament: they had travelled to play, so they may as well play as often as they could to maximise their earnings. Nowadays, with earnings for singles players being ridiculously off the charts this logic no longer applies so the minnows hoover up the scraps.

So in my view they should either scrap doubles (if they consider it more trouble than it is worth, and the specialist doubles players beneath consideration) or encourage doubles - they won't encourage doubles (when it literally cannot be worth a singles players time/ risk to indulge) by pretending that people want to see singles players playing doubles like they used to.

-- Edited by christ on Saturday 6th of April 2024 06:58:15 PM

I think its fair to say the majority of these changes will not be here to stay.

On site entries now showing on the darts site. As predicted, not enough singles players willing to play. 7 spots saved for the singles players only 2 top 50 players signed up (Medvedev/Paul). The rest have gone to singles teams with combined singles rankings of 163, 182 and 414 (!!!), 1 singles player playing with a doubles player (the only such team signed up) and 3 doubles specialist teams.

Basically, Hassan/Shelbayh combined singles ranking 414, have received entry over Escobar/Nedovyesov combined doubles ranking 90.

Heliovaara/Patten and Cash/Galloway are 2nd and 3rd alts respectively and face a choice between going or playing a 175 challenger. They may have a chance as WC teams not showing, and god knows who they will be if the cut for singles players was 414!!!!