It has been five years since the tournament directors revolt against men’s doubles threatened to banish that special game to the exclusive purview of the Grand Slams and Davis Cup, but after all that grumbling back in 2006, doubles has not only survived, but, financially, has never been in better condition.
On Sunday, for example, two Brazilians who would have a hard time earning meal money if they had to depend on their singles play, won the doubles title at Costa du Sauipe in their home country and went home with $13,000 each.
In the heady financial world of ATP singles that doesn’t sound like much, but if it wasn’t for doubles, Marcelo Melo and Bruno Soares, and a great number of other tennis professionals of limited talent, wouldn’t be swinging rackets for a living.
Maybe Melo and Soares, who between them have played exactly two ATP singles matches in their careers, aren’t getting rich, but they’re making enough to sustain their careers, and there are, in fact, more than a few doubles players who are getting wealthy, thanks to the 20 percent cut doubles now takes, on average, out of the ATP tournaments and the Grand Slams.
To put that in hard dollars, last year an estimated $155 million in prize money was doled out by the ATP and the Slams. Twenty percent of that is $31 million.
The No. 1 doubles team of Bob and Mike Bryan each earned a little more than $1 million in prize money in 2010, ranking 18th on the tour money list that was headed by Rafael Nadal. They weren’t the only doubles players pulling down major dollars. Nenad Zimonjic and his partner, Daniel Nestor, another couple of doubles-only players, each made in excess of $900,000. In fact, only 22 singles players in 2010 made more money than Zimonjic.
No reasonable person would argue that either Bob or Mike Bryan is the 18th most gifted tennis player in the world. But the reality is that doubles is a niche part of the game, requiring a special kind of talent, and as long as doubles is an integral part of Davis Cup and the Slams, it’s highly unlikely its going to disappear from the ATP landscape, despite its acknowledged lack of drawing power.
There isn’t much doubt that some tournament directors see doubles as an albatross. They have to pay for hotel rooms, food and transportation to and from hotels. They have to make available practice court time. They have to deliver medical attention to doubles players, where needed, and they have to siphon 20 percent of their prize money off to doubles.
What are they getting in return?
There’s no easy answer to that. Few fans are going to pay, especially in the smaller ATP events, to see doubles players. They’re there to see top-20 singles players.
Anyone who has been to an ATP 250, such as Delray Beach, Fl., or Houston, knows that doubles matches, right up to the final, don’t draw impressive crowds.
Unless it’s a team that has gained some notoriety, like the Bryans or The Indians (Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes), fans peek in at doubles matches to see names on the scoreboard they’ve never seen before.
How many fans — even the more-core fans — could pick the teams of Lukasz Kubot/Oliver Marach or Mariusz Frystenberg/Marcin Matkowski out of a lineup? Yet these are top-10 teams in doubles.
You’d have a difficult time arguing that obscure doubles players, many of whom have to change partners from week to week, are part of a tournament’s revenue stream. But, again, it’s not all that simple.
“I think doubles is a valuable asset,” says Justin Gimelstob, the retired American singles and doubles player who is now on the ATP board of directors and who takes a broader view of the game. “There’s no doubt that there are people who love watching it, especially when you have a lot more well-known singles players playing. Plus, you need matches before and after singles, matches to fill the schedule. I think there’s a lot of added value to the doubles product.”
The doubles crisis I mentioned early on in this piece happened while former ATP chief executive Etienne de Villiers was running this show, and he may have come up with the solution that headed off a real doubles revolt by the men and women who bankroll tournaments.
The trick was to get more singles “names” into the doubles draw and shorten matches so that they didn’t cut into projected starting times of singles matches, and get more doubles matches on stadium courts, where there could be more exposure.
So the ATP went to no-ad scoring and, if teams split sets, they would play a first-one-to-10 super tiebreak (win by at least two points). That allowed tournaments to estimate, with fair accuracy, that the outside time on doubles matches would be around one hour and 15 minutes. They then reduced the draws at smaller ATP events to 16 teams, thereby cutting costs and easing the pressure on court time, umpires and linespeople and ball kids.
The idea of not having to get involved in some interminably long doubles match proved enough of an attraction to top singles players that some at the bigger events signed to play. Last year, for example, Nadal not only reached the semis of the singles at Indian Wells 1000, but won the doubles, with Spanish compatriot Marc Lopez.
Nadal, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray — they’re not going to play more than a handful of doubles events. But the fact that they’re getting involved at all is incentive to other top-20 singles players.
“We were at one time in danger of being cut out of the sport, but right now, doubles is in a stable condition,” said Eric Butorac, who at age 29 has never played an ATP singles match, but who has earned more than $600,000 playing doubles. He was in San Jose, Calif., last week, where he won a match with partner Jean-Julian Rojer before losing in the quarters. Butorac is one of two doubles players on the ATP Players Council.
Despite the improved economic climate, is it enough to leave doubles players satisfied? “We need more promotion, but we need to self-promote,” says Butorac. He mentioned social networking and a clinic he and Rojer put on in San Jose for kids.
He’s played in front of thousands and he’s played before small crowds. “You don’t worry about it,” he says. “You just try to put on the best show you can.”
Doubles is fortunate to have Gimelstob, 34, in a strong position at the ATP. He not only believes in the game after winning 13 doubles titles in his career, but he pumps the game as an analyst and tennis reporter for the Tennis Channel.
“The ATP just signed a deal to televise every doubles final from the 1000 Series tournaments,” he explained. That’s the sort of wider exposure doubles requires.
And Gimelstob defends the quality of tennis played by men who would not do well in singles. “Doubles requires a different skill set and you have to give doubles players their due. They’re still playing tennis,” he said.
With $31 million in prize money out there, is there any question that doubles players are getting their due?