Tennis Mailbag: How to Solve the Doubles Dilemma

Submissions have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity

As it is written, Wednesday is mailbag day.

• We're doing daily Wimbledon recap episodes on the Served podcast:

• Come back this weekend for Wimbledon finals coverage and the 50 Thoughts column.

Jon,

I have written to you before about the perilous situation with doubles, particularly men's doubles, and it may now be coming to a head. I am sure you will be writing about it. The finances of singles and doubles are simply not compatible. My suggestion, which I confess no one takes seriously, is for doubles to split off as a separate tour-both men and women and mixed doubles as well-in smaller locations at less expense. If the media took any interest in it, and they might, the players might get more name recognition and its flagging finances might revive.

Doubles has a big problem with singles players jumping in and jumping out again, which would be resolved at a stroke. If the singles players had any interest in playing doubles, and some might, they could take a week off the singles tour to play a doubles tournament.

Regards, Peter French

• This calls for a longer discussion, but some overarching thoughts:

A) Two things can be true at once. We can like doubles viscerally and hope it thrives, but we also note the economic reality: it is increasingly hard to make a business case. Sheer sentiment doesn't win many arguments or solve many problems. On the other hand, cold decisions based solely on spreadsheets-failing to acknowledge pain and job loss-don't help either.

B) To me, this is less about "killing doubles" than redistributing revenue. The 20% of prize money allocated to doubles doesn't go away. It just moves to the singles field.

C) Management-especially management that believes labor should be cheap and disposable-must love this. When Reilly Opelka, to name names (though he is hardly alone in the locker room with his view), disparages colleagues, it has terrible consequences for players. Management sees this and sees division in the ranks.

D) Note that women's tennis doesn't have this problem. Best-of-five matches are repeatedly cited as a reason why women's singles players often play doubles, while men don't. But the ATP whittling of the doubles field doesn't impact the majors. Go figure.

E) There has to be a creative solution here. Thriving organizations should not be shedding jobs. Doubles must recognize the economic realities. Maybe they are only allowed one guest, or no free hotel rooms. Maybe they must do X sponsor clinics per event. Perhaps they receive a smaller percentage of the pension, or a financial model is put in place in which they are compensated based on engagement. And the tours must recognize that they bear some blame, that they will have a hard time filling sessions at 12-day Masters events in particular, and that doubles can, under the right circumstances, be a value-add.

F) History, tradition, John McEnroe and Peter Fleming are all irrelevant. Today's stars don't want to play doubles. And there is no Bryan Brothers equivalent. College players starting their careers as doubles specialists, with no singles ambitions, is problematic. But so is a tour simply putting an axe to dozens of jobs.

I noticed that when [Aryna] Sabalenka played her match against Naomi Osaka, they still weren't showing the flag of Belarus. Do you know why this is still the policy? I thought the IOC had changed it.

Syed

• Good catch. TheIOC only recommendedthat Belarus no longer face restrictions. Tennis has chosen the status quo, effectively the same policy as in 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Belarus and Russia are still banned from team competitions. I'm told the tours are basically deferring to World Tennis, formerly the ITF. And the earliest World Tennis could change the policy would be after the annual General Meeting (AGM) in October. We'll see how this plays out, but I wouldn't expect a change any time soon.

Is Frances Tiafoe ever going to win a major? It seems like every time he gets some momentum he can't sustain it.

Lloyd

• Here's a virtue of tennis: It only takes two weeks to rewrite a career. No rebuilding seasons. No worst-to-first. Which is to say: When someone says [Naomi Osaka, Jessica Pegula, Frances Tiafoe] will never win a major, they have revealed themselves to be tennis ignorami. If Emma Raducanu can qualify and win a major, anyone can.

Do I think Tiafoe will win a major? He's shown good progress this year, but he still needs to clean up his game and his match management. We know that his peak is sufficiently high. The problem is his lapse in best-of-five matches. In his past two majors, he was bounced in winnable matches where he lacked the necessary match generalship. So, would I predict he wins a major? Probably not. Would I rule it out? No.

Hey Jon, hope all is well.

Not sure what the cadence is for doing the mailbag during Wimbledon, but I have two separate questions. Maybe the second one can wait until after the tournament, as it's more general, as opposed to Wimby specific.

1. With [Elena] Rybakina, Serena [Williams], and [Iga] Świątek out, Barbora Krejčíková is the last remaining former Wimbledon winner in the draw. Assuming she doesn't take the title (although she very well could), that'll be 10 different consecutive winners. Wild! Who do you think is going to take it? Presumably you're sticking with your pick from the seed report (Jessica Pegula)?

2. I'm curious if the rise in antisemitism is a topic that gets discussed and/or addressed in the tennis world. It's a scary time to be a Jewish person, especially in major cities, and I wonder if the tours are taking a proactive approach or using any language at all to help combat this problem. As far as I know, there aren't many active Jewish or Israeli players on the tours, but that doesn't diminish the need for being vocal about hate speech and violence. Your insight would be truly appreciated.

Best regards,

LT (Toronto)

Thanks.

1) Obviously, since this came in, Krejčíková, Sabalenka and Pegula lost. Funny, I asked Pegula this very question on Sunday. And, as ever, she had a measured, reasoned answer. Best-of-three works in the service of change and upsets. Grass is a fluky surface. The field is deep. I'm sure it's more complicated than that. I'd add that the volatility and variance add a layer of impressiveness to what Martina Navratilova (9), Serena and Steffi Graf (7), and Venus Williams (5) did.

2) Tennis often falls squarely-or peripherally-in the crosshairs of so many global issues. The Russian attack on Ukraine. Chinese autocracy. Sportswashing in the Middle East.

I've heard/seen/experienced very little about Israel/Gaza or anti-Semitism or Islamophobia. ZeynepSönmez was told last week that she couldn't use a watermelon shock absorber-a symbolic gesture of Palestinian support-but otherwise, I've heard very little. Maybe it's because there are few Israeli, Jewish or Muslim players right now. Maybe it's for the opposite reason: It's because there are many Jewish and Muslim figures within the sport-coaches, agents, media members, labor leaders. But I've seen nothing in tennis that would qualify as hate speech, much less violence.

Good Lord, the Serena worship TV coverage. First of all, everyone must call her the GOAT, not allowed to say maybe Steffi Graf was better … don't even ... second of all, she just lost to an unranked player who had lost 11 matches in a row. But they treated it as "courageous" and "who would even attempt this" as further evidence of Serena GOATness. I mean, please.

Dominic Ciafardini

Westchester, NY

• The media-and I don't exempt myself-may have gone a bit overboard. As for the actual tennis, it was, I keep using the word, respectable. Serena served well (the serve being the turnaround jump shot of tennis, the element that is the last to go). Serena held her own in most rallies. She was a step slow but did not embarrass herself with her movement. She did well, given the circumstances, her age (44) and her amount of run-up matches (0). She also lost to a player who, as you note, had been in a bone-deep slump and was the kind of player she would have rolled 6–2, 6–2 in her prime.

As for the off-court conduct, you try to balance grace and understanding with objective standards. Would it have been nice had she been more gracious after defeat? Yes. Would it have been nice if she had made her way to a press conference, not just for the independent media but for the tournament that gifted her a wild card? Yes. Then again, if she did things conventionally or absent drama, she wouldn't be who she is.

ENJOY THE END OF WIMBLEDON, EVERYONE!

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Tennis Mailbag: How to Solve the Doubles Dilemma .

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