COMMENT – Sports matches are decided by which team plays better on the particular day of the event, regardless of their history in that particular tournament or their prospects going forward. In individual sports such as tennis, squash and the like, the same rule applies. One can argue that luck plays its part in deciding many an outcome, especially one that bucks the trend, but more often than not, the winner is the side who made most of the opportunities presented to them. However, one aspect of any sport event, barring round-robin league matches, where luck can decide your fate from the outset, is the draw.
A well nigh sanctified ritual, the draw sets out the field based only on a few simple parameters, and those with a keen enough eye can chart, to a good degree of certainty, the tournament winner.
On the subject of draws, there is an interesting phenomenon being observed in tennis, more specifically in men’s tennis. This is the increasingly regular presence of singles players in the doubles events and that too at the expense of the erstwhile ‘doubles specialists’.
Not too long ago, even as short a while back as last season, the participation of singles players in the doubles draw was restricted to the start of the year, when players were eager to get as many matches under their belt as they could to shake off any rustiness that had set in with a month off the tour in the end-of-season rest period. Likewise, this behaviour was adopted by any player returning from injury. This worked the other way around as well, with doubles players focussing on the team game rather than hopping into the singles draw at any given chance. This is a thing of the past now, however, and one could see, particularly in the doubles draw of the two biggest ATP events this year, at Indian Wells and Miami, a majority presence of singles players as opposed to doubles specialist teams.
There are a few reasons that can account for this shift. Among them are a series of the rules of the game that have come about over the past few years. The ATP player council, the leaders of which are invariably picked from the leading singles players, has voted on changes to point award systems and entry requirements to suit its needs, as it was wont to do. While some changes are more general in that their effects are the same on both singles and doubles, there are a few changes that have altered the way the doubles game is played. To form a base understanding, note that singles and doubles rankings are calculated separately, and were used to decide entry into tournaments.
The first indication of singles players’ growing interest in doubles was when a rule was brought in, allowing one member of a doubles duo to use his singles ranking, while the other would use his doubles ranking, to enter a tournament. This removed, at least partially, the most basic barrier to a singles player’s entry in the doubles draw; his low doubles ranking. While this allowed for more flexibility in choice of partners for both singles and doubles players, the advantage was much more significant for the former, as there was no reciprocal measure that would allow doubles players the same liberties in the singles draw.
This same rule was later amended to allow both members of a doubles team to use their singles rankings. Although pure doubles sides can be seeded, this has served the purpose of lowering the cut-off ranking (the minimum sum total of the two players’ doubles rankings required for entry) significantly, as singles players with higher rankings can enter tournaments partnering with each other at the cost of doubles specialists. The only remaining hurdle was that singles players found it physically and mentally taxing to play doubles as well. The solution was a combination of two rules that shortened the doubles game dramatically.
First, the ‘no-ad’ system was introduced, whereby a game on 40-40 in a doubles game would be decided on the next point, rather than an advantage to either side. Secondly, there would be a 10 point ‘super tie breaker’ a la mixed doubles, rather than a final set, which could stretch on for a longer time. Thus the doubles game became more manageable for players busy with their singles responsibilities.
I would like to point out that the aim of this piece is not to vilify singles players.
It is an indisputable fact that the big stars of the game emerge from the singles arena. One can even understand their motives for making the doubles game more accessible. In singles, at least in the men’s game, there is a trend of one or a few players ruling the roost, and ruling it with an iron fist. Case in point: From the start of 2004 up until today, of a total of 29 Grand Slam tournaments, titles have been won by a mere six different individuals; Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Del Potro, Safin and Gaudio. Of these 29, 24 are accounted for by Federer and Nadal alone, with 2 for Djokovic and one apiece for the remaining three players.
Is it any wonder then, with this kind of domination by a handful of players, that the rest of the field feel they must look elsewhere for a chance at Grand Slam glory? The solution was presented last year at Wimbledon, where Melzer and Petzchner showed that you do not have to be a full time doubles team to win a Grand Slam title. While it is true that the aforementioned rules allowed the Austro-German pair to participate in the tournament, their ultimate victory, en route to which they dispatched several seasoned doubles teams, showed the way to other players yearning for titles in the singles draw.
The game has changed much over the years, with courts being slowed down, the tennis balls used being made heavier, and with racquet and gut technology allowing more forceful impact in rallies. This has made it a baseliner’s game, and so doubles players, trained as they are to rush the net on every point, find themselves at a disadvantage against singles players who are happy to sit back and hammer serve returns and ground strokes from the baseline.
Dolgopolov and Malisse dispatched the record-setting Bryan brothers at the Indian Wells, where the only pure doubles team to make the semi-finals was that of Aisam Qureshi and Rohan Bopanna. If this is an omen for the demise of the doubles game as we know it, it may be too early to say. What is certain is that the game of men’s tennis is changing, and if things continue as they are, we will be seeing the same players playing the same way in singles and doubles. Make of that what you will.
