MELBOURNE, Australia -- Tennis fans love to play doubles.
But look how many stream for the stadium exits after a men's
singles final, skipping the doubles title match that follows.
Women's doubles is flourishing, with many of the big names in
singles -- Martina Hingis, Monica Seles, Venus and Serena Williams --
teaming before full houses. But top male players shun doubles,
relegating it to the shadows of the professional game.
In hopes of changing that, the ATP announced a set of changes
Saturday designed to bring more fans to courtside and more money to
promoters.
The goal is to attract marquee names and gradually end the
phenomenon of doubles specialists that has come to dominate the
game, said Larry Scott, the No. 2 official at the ATP, which runs
68 men's tournaments annually in 31 countries.
"We just want to change the player culture and mentality and
make it mandatory that getting into doubles will be based on
singles ranking," Scott said.
The new rules, which will be phased in over the next few years,
will allow more singles players to qualify for doubles based on
their rankings. The ATP also wants to encourage teams to stay
together and will consider shortening matches.
"There are a lot of doubles specialists out there who
tournament directors feel don't bring in the revenue that they're
putting out," said Wayne Ferreira, who plays singles and doubles.
The South African, along with his partner in Melbourne, Yevgeny
Kafelnikov, are rare specimens. Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Pat
Rafter and other stars focus on singles in an ever more cutthroat
field of competitors.
John McEnroe loved doubles and used it as a substitute for
training. But his successors are not of the same mind-set.
Promoters devote about 25 percent of prize money to doubles. But
without that star power, they say, it's not worth it.
This year, for the first time, mixed doubles matches in
Melbourne that are tied at 1-1 are decided by a tiebreak instead of
a third set.
Mahesh Bhupathi of India, winner of 17 doubles titles, said the
ATP has long neglected doubles.
"We're lucky if people even stay for the doubles final," he
said after he and Leander Paes lost in the first round Thursday.
The ATP also said Saturday it will hire a consultant to
coordinate promotion of doubles. There is talk that Patricia
Jensen, mother of the American doubles duo Luke and Murphy Jensen,
might be a candidate for the job.
Players and tournament organizers agree that doubles would
benefit if teams played together more often instead of mixing and
matching just ahead of a tournament draw.
"People can hang a hat on them and follow them," said Craig
Gabriel, media director of the ATP World Doubles Tennis
Championship last month in Bangalore, India.
Doubles lost its most famous pair last year with the end of the
Mark Woodforde-Todd Woodbridge partnership. They won 11 Grand Slam
titles, including their first French Open in 2000.
For now, doubles careerists must contend with the perception
that they are second-class citizens on the tour.
"They're not classified on the same sort of pedestal,"
Ferreira said. "The ones that don't even try to play singles, and
just concentrate on doubles, most people look down on them a little
bit."
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