ATP Doubles Changes

It's funny that mainstream news tickers didn't carry this article. Tom Tebbutt of The Globe and Mail wrote in his column about some format changes the Association of Tennis Professionals plans to implement after the US Open. Tennis-X also mentioned this news yesterday, but at the very end of a long article.

Apparently, men's doubles matches on the tour will be played without breaks during the changeovers, with tiebreaks at 4-all, and with no-ad scoring. This means that a the final score in a doubles match could look like this: 5-4, 5-3.

These changes are being instituted so that "doubles competition on the men's tour does not clog up the schedule and that an event attracts more top singles players..."

I think that, instead of enticing singles players to join the doubles event at a tournament, it could marginalize men's doubles. You have doubles specialists just like you have singles specialists. Both singles and doubles are part of tennis, regardless of which is more popular.

It would be like playing a pro-set instead of a best-of-five match. John McEnroe can hang with the younger players during a SuperSet match, but he can't keep up that form for at least three sets these days. If this format change occurs, doubles teams who come back from being 3-5 down to win the set 7-5 will be a thing of the past.

Late last year, the ATP website surveyed its readers about doubles. I was one of the people who responded to their questionnaire. It asked me if I wanted more singles players to play doubles, if scoring should become no-ad, and if time spent conferring between points should be shortened. I said yes to the first, no to the second, and no to the third. I think the ATP might have made the results of that survey (which may have been non-scientific, by the way) the basis for their decision regarding the format changes.

In the Tennis-X article, Todd Woodbridge says this about the changes:

"I'm very disappointed with our (ATP) council, so much so that I think they all should resign because they've gone ahead and made changes without even asking what the rest of the tennis world thinks. They've made a scoring system that doesn't even exist. It's not an approved system by the International Tennis Federation. They've gone and made a decision against what the players also wish. Even the top singles players are scratching their head at this decision. It's disappointing."

posted by Noelle De Guzman @ 12:45 PM