US Open Hints At Tweeking Doubles Competition…For Fans’ Betterment
By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
The U.S. Open doubles competition has become barely an afterthought in recent years. That might be about to change.
Speaking with Andy Roddick on his “Served” podcast, U.S. Open Tournament Director Stacey Allaster discussed a way that might be entertained to ensure more singles stars play in the doubles competition, enhancing the excitement of the event and to better fan value. Rather than the sign-in for the doubles competition taking place on the day before the main draw starts on Sunday, Allaster suggested that perhaps the doubles sign-in should be pushed ahead five days and after the conclusion of the second round of singles, when half of the 128 men’s and 128 women’s singles players are eliminated and do not have to worry about the physical stress of playing both singles and doubles.
“I think there needs to be some adaptation. I would love to see more singles players play (doubles),” said Allaster to Roddick. “I know that’s a tall order, but here’s the reality. Fifty percent of the main draw players are finished on Thursday night, the first week of main draw. And they are singles players that could play great doubles, but we have the sign-in for doubles on Sunday morning, the doubles draw Sunday. If you’re a singles player, you’re not playing, especially the guys. We still have a few women playing doubles. This would be unpopular, but I think we have to reimagine it. That maybe the doubles draw of the U.S. Open starts on Saturday. Doubles sign-in is on Friday.”
Roddick started the conversation asking Allaster where doubles fits in the conversation and landscape of the U.S. Open, suggesting that it’s just not that doubles is not marketed enough.
Said Allaster, “Look, doubles is a great product, and the majority of tennis players play doubles but the only time we can look at proof of reality, generally, when you have singles players playing doubles, we have more people watching.”
Allaster used as just one example that almost 10,000 tickets were sold for the U.S. Open’s special “Mixed Madness” mixed doubles event held during “Fan Week” the week before the main draw of the tournament.
“I love doubles, but the current product is not optimal for this macro 894 matches we have, the 600 players,” Allaster said. “And I don’t think it is about just marketing. It has to do with who’s playing. If there’s a product on the shelf and it’s not being bought, then manufacturers adapt the product.”
At the 2024 U.S. Open, only 38 players from the men’s singles event also played in the doubles tournament. Of those 38, 15 were ranked in the top 50 of the ATP singles rankings, led by No. 8 Casper Ruud, No. 21 Alejandro Tabilo, No. 34 Arthur Fils and No. 26 Nicolas Jarry. In the women’s event at the 2024 U.S. Open, 68 players from the singles event also played in the doubles tournament. Of those 68, 25 were ranked in the top 50 of the WTA singles rankings, led by No. 5 Jasmine Paolini, No. 10 Jelena Ostapenko, No. 15 Anna Kalinskaya and No. 16 Liudmila Samsonova.
Some of the “star” male singles players who lost in the first or second round of the U.S. Open singles tournament (and did not play doubles) include Holger Rune, Stefanos Tsitsipas (but played official mixed doubles), Hubert Hurkacz, Gael Monfils, Sebi Korda, Matteo Berrettini, Stan Wawrinka, Carlos Alcaraz, Felix Auger-Aliassame, Fabio Fognini and American favorites Chris Eubanks and Reilly Opelka. On the women’s side, some of the “star” players who lost in the first or second round (and who did not play doubles) include Danielle Collins, Naomi Osaka, Emma Raducanu, Bianca Andreescu, Maria Sakkari, Barbora Krejcikova, Amanda Anisimova as well as Karolina Pliskova and Elena Rybakina, who both pulled out with injury, however.
Perhaps more importantly, starting the doubles competitions later will add much needed content over the Labor Day weekend. It will add more value for attending fans, which swell during the three-day American holiday weekend, and also will ease crowding on the grounds because there are more matches on the outer courts for the fans to spread out and watch. This was first brought up in 2022 as you can read here https://www.worldtennismagazine.com/archives/21267 and also watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fGp1JzwEsM
“There’s a lot of content in singles. That’s one of the other challenges,” Allaster told Roddick. “When you’ve got long three, four-hour singles matches back to back and then there’s a doubles match, they’re only going to have that small niche. Those die hards.”
The start of the doubles tournament gets mostly overshadowed by the second round singles matches. If the doubles tournament started on the middle Saturday of the U.S. Open, it would gain more visibility and would take eight to nine days to complete six rounds of the event.
Said Roddick, “It’s not as if six doubles matches in 10 days is a massive ask physically if you’re not also having to negotiate singles.”
As an example of the little attention / interest in the doubles competition at the 2024 U.S. Open, when three-time reigning champions Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury were upset in the third round by fellow Americans Nate Lammons and Jackson Withrow, none of the four players were requested to do a post-match press conference or any type of interview.
If the doubles tournaments can see an uptick in interest, one could potentially see an added ticket-selling session at the U.S. Open as the second Thursday of the tournament, the women’s singles semifinal day, could see a split day-night session with one women’s semifinal during the day and one a night, with men’s doubles semifinals also being played as the second match during each respective session. (or potentially the men’s doubles final in one session and the mixed doubles final in another session.) The same could be scheduled for the women’s doubles semifinals around the men’s singles semifinals.
