Washington

By Randy Walker

@TennisPublisher

An interesting question came up today while I was reviewing the Friday quarterfinal order of play at the CitiOpen in Washington D.C.

I looked at the schedule of play and thought that if I was the event’s tournament director, how could I make the schedule more appealing and promotable?

What stood out to me first was the fact that all of the women’s matches, including an attractive match between former U.S. Open champion Sam Stosur against upstart American Jessica Pegula (whose father owns the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and NHL’s Buffalo Sabres) were not scheduled for the Stadium Court. However, that is not what this column is about.

What also stood out to me was that match between John Isner and Stevie Johnson, the No. 1 and No. 2 ranked American tennis players, was scheduled for not-before-3 pm start in the sweltering summer sun and heat and not the showcase night match in prime time. The other men’s quarterfinals were Ivo Karlovic, the 37-year-old, 6-foot-10 big-serving Croat, vs. U.S. Davis Cupper and No. 3-ranked American Jack Sock, which kicked off play at 1 pm, the prime time night match at 7 pm with Sam Querrey, the No. 4 American fresh off an seismic upset over Novak Djokovic at Wimbledon, against the entertaining Gael Monfils of France, and the not-before 9-pm match featuring Alexander Zverev of Germany against Benoit Paire of France.

On Twitter, I suggested that the Stadium schedule should be Karlovic vs. Sock at 1 pm, followed by Stosur vs. Pegula starting at not-before-3 pm and Isner vs. Johnson at not-before-7 pm and then Querrey vs. Monfils as the night-cap. Those were the four best match-ups and most intriguing storylines to me and for an American audience in Washington, D.C. (Sorry to Mr. Zverev and Mr. Paire, but you are not household names yet in the USA, although Zverev has been tagged as a potential future No. 1 player). Isner vs. Johnson is a match you can – and should – really hype – the top two American players playing in prime time in the nation’s capital – Washington, DC! It was also a rematch of an amazing semifinal at this same event a year ago, Isner winning 11-9 in the third-set tiebreaker 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (11-9). These guys deserve to play in front of the biggest American audience possible – more fans in the stands enjoying the night session on site after work and more TV viewers in prime time on The Tennis Channel. If we want to promote tennis in America, we have to promote and give the best possible visibility to American players, especially our top two players.

I quickly deduced that the reason for the original order of play was because of a not-really-official but practiced rule in tennis that says singles matches need to be played before doubles matches. Sock and Johnson, in prepping to play Olympic doubles in Rio next month, were scheduled to play a doubles quarterfinal on Friday as was Querrey, partnering Chris Guccione of Australia. Therefore, their matches had to be played earlier so they could also play in doubles after their singles, Querrey playing his doubles match in the late-night slot after his prime-time singles.

So the question I ask is ‘Why is it such a big deal not to play doubles before singles?’

While serving as tournament director of the 2016 Mardy Fish Children’s Foundation tennis championships in Vero Beach, Florida, a $10,000 USTA Futures tournament, I worked diligently with USTA Supervisor David Littlefield daily to figure out the most appetizing order of play. This ritual turned into kind of a jigsaw puzzle, figuring out what was fair for the players and what was appealing to the fans to help us get the best possible audience in attendance to sell more tickets and promote the sport. One of the elements that came up in this process was a player having to play a singles match before a doubles match. At times, this “rule” hurt us when we wanted to put the most attractive match of the day as our feature night match. It even affected our “finals” day when we had been promoting our doubles final to start at 11 am to lead into the crescendo of the tournament with the singles final at a not-before-1 pm start time. However, when Jonas Ljuetjen of Germany reached the singles and doubles final at our event, we had to play the singles final first at 11 am and the doubles to follow. As a result, some fans missed the singles final due to the early start time, which had been significantly pre-promoted.

Another situation where getting rid of this singles before doubles “rule” is that it may prevent a player – particularly a star player – from not putting forth the best physical or mental effort in a doubles match played after they are eliminated from the singles competition. A player might lose in the second or third round in the singles tournament and then later that afternoon or night, so distraught over losing in singles and eager to get home or to the next tournament, will not put forth their best effort in the doubles in order to move on out of town. If you can keep that marquee player around for another round of doubles, that can also help with selling tickets and promoting the sport. If you put the doubles on court first before the singles, the player will be all-in for his doubles match, theoretically, and may win that and then play singles later which the player, theoretically, could lose but would still be in the tournament based on the doubles win earlier.

Is playing singles before doubles discrimination against doubles? Sure, doubles has less prize money, less attention from fans and media, but if you’re only playing a two-set match – covering half the court with shorter points – with a 10-point tiebreaker played in lieu of the third set and with no ad scoring, it’s not that much of a relative effort, right? A men’s pro doubles match, two-sets with no-ad scoring and 10-point tiebreaker played in the third lasts, on average, only about an hour. So what’s the big deal about having that done before a singles match? It can be, more or less, a warm-up or practice for a singles match. John McEnroe has always said that the reason he played so much doubles was because he didn’t like to practice and playing doubles matches served him in that “practice” role.

While this scenario is not going to happen all the much, it would be advantageous for players, tour supervisors and promoters to have a bit more flexibility with this rule. In the big picture of promoting the sport of tennis as a spectator sport to an audience that is increasingly having more and more entertainment options, every little move can help.