Double trouble: story of a dying event

CHENNAI, APRIL 1999: Byron Black of Zimbabwe has just won the title that matters at the Gold Flake Open in the Nungambakkam Tennis Stadium. The main act is already over. Or, is it?

For, it doesn't look like the best part of the evening is over. Hundreds of people are just entering the stadium and on the centre court slowly every single seat is taken even as Black pockets his prize money cheque and makes his way to the dressing room.

So, what's going on? Why is everybody in the stadium so exicited?

The answer is simple. The doubles final is the climactic act of the evening. And the show features India's Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes.

Later that evening, as the crowd works itself to a frenzy, Bhupathi and Paes go on to record a hat-trick of titles in the tournament amidst unprecedented scenes of jubilation.

``It is very rare to see such enthusiasm among the fans for a doubles match,'' says a visiting tennis official later that night.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, JANUARY 2001: On the No.1 court, Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes are playing Joshua Eagle and Andrew Florent of Australia in a first round match.

There are more than 1,000 fans to start with, but slowly, as the match progresses, there are rows and rows of empty seats. ``So much for doubles!'' says a colleague in the small press box where four of us are sitting.

Yet, only an hour earlier, on the same court, there was not a seat to be had and hundreds were craning their necks over the railing to witness the action. And that was a doubles match, too.

Yes, indeed. That was a doubles match too. But it featured Martina Hingis and Monica Seles.

There you have the answer. In most places on the tennis tour, if doubles sells, it sells on personalities. A good 90 per cent of the crowd for that women's doubles match at the Australian Open was present simply because it featured Hingis and Seles, both saleable megastars.

As the great debate about the place doubles deserves on Planet Tennis rages, there is no getting away from the fact that this is a sport that is sold on personalities and doubles, at least men's doubles, certainly has very few personalities that can put people in the seats.

Of course, Bhupathi and Paes are huge personalities in India but away from home, they are just another pair like dozens of others making a living in the shadow of the singles game dominated by giants such as Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Marat Safin and Pat Rafter who have very little time - or energy - to set apart for doubles.

In fact, over the last decade and a little more, doubles has become a sport within a sport in the men's game. There are the singles players, then there are the doubles players. Very few successful and active singles players venture into doubles on a regular basis.

Gone are the days when a megastar like John McEnroe played doubles week after week and helped showcase the game from Flushing Meadows to Wimbledon to Roland Garros. The only Top 10 player who, today, plays doubles on a regular basis is the Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov. And he does it for money and not for the love of doubles.

In the event, it is hardly surprising that Tournament Organisers have been arguing with the Association of Tennis Professionals officials that they are being forced to spend a lot of money on hosting doubles events without getting the right sort of returns.

Meetings have been held in Melbourne during the Australian Open to discuss the issue. Several points have been raised and a number of possibilities - including the idea of shortening doubles matches from best of three sets to two sets and a tiebreak as well as reducing the number of events and teams - yet the future of the four-man sport looks rather bleak.

Unless the International Tennis Federation and the ATP come together and devise a long-term plan to promote the ailing sport, it is quite possible that doubles tennis, as we know it today on the ATP Tour, may die a natural death in 10 years' time and the game will survive only at the Grand Slams.

``Promotion, that is the key. People who run the game will have to actively promote doubles. It has been neglected for a long time,'' says Mahesh Bhupathi, as prominent a doubles specialist as you might find on the Tour.

His long-time partner Paes agrees. ``It should be a team effort. The sport is bigger than all of us. All of us, the officials, the players and the media, should come together to support doubles. That is the only way out. No one party can independently help,'' says India's Davis Cup hero.

But, at best, it is a Catch 22 situation. Unless some or all of the top singles players turn their attention to doubles and devote time playing it on the Tour, doubles will not find favour from the fans, particularly in Europe and the United States. And whether we like it or not, that is where the money comes from in this game.

And how do you get men such as Sampras and Agassi and Rafter to play doubles? The way the game is structured today, it is almost impossible for a player to do well in both the events in a Grand Slam tournament. The heat takes its own toll in Melbourne and you can hardly expect a Sampras to get out and play doubles on his ``off day'' after toiling for over three hours in a singles match the day before.

As for some of the younger ones such as Marat Safin and Lleyton Hewitt, as much as they may like playing doubles, they are quick to realise that it is their singles results that will get them the sponsorship and the star status they crave.

``It's a very tough situation. I don't see a way out at this point,'' says Alan Mills, Chief Referee of the Wimbledon championships. ``You have to understand the tournament organisers' point of view. This is not a sport anymore. It is a huge business. And it may not make business sense of spend a lot of money running doubles,'' he says.

Bhupathi himself admits that, for all the problems, they (doubles players) are on a good wicket today. ``I think we are lucky. We may not be generating a lot of interest in all the places we play in, but we are making good money. Then again, I think if doubles is promoted well it will get fans' support in time.'' For a start, from India's point of view, it was promoted well enough in Bangalore by Bhupathi's father, C.G.K.Bhupathi, who ran the Gold Flake World doubles there last year. Yet, only on the last two days did the stadium fill out.

And the very fact that Bangalore succeeded in getting the event, in itself, points to the lack of interest for the doubles world championship in Europe and in the United States.

As much as tennis officials can do to promote the sport, what doubles needs is for players such as Bhupathi and Paes - men from the same country - to emerge and help sustain the sport's distinct identity as an entertaining team sport.

Last year, at Wimbledon, Mark Woodforde, one half of the most famous and successful doubles pair of the 1990s - Todd Woodbridge is the other - had said that it was a pity that Bhupathi and Paes were not playing together (at that point).

``We thought they were our natural successors. For this sport to succeed, we need more such pairs to come through,'' Woodforde has said.

The problem is, very few doubles teams stick together over several seasons. Player X is playing with player Y today but in the next tournament his partner is someone else. And unless fans can get familiar with identifiable ``national'' teams, so to say, such as Bhupathi and Paes, the sport will continue to languish.

``Imagine if Andre and Pete were to play Lleyton (Hewitt) and Pat (Rafter),'' said an Aussie tennis writer the other day. That's a glorious dream. But it will remain as fanciful as John Lennon's famous Beatles number `Imagine'.

Meanwhile, for the most part, the doubles players will have to live in the shadow and take what comes their way without complaining. For, few Tournament Organisers will come forward to support an independent doubles event on the Tour and the game has to ride piggy back on singles.

It's strange, but true. Doubles is a sport that a good number of tennis fans enjoy playing. In fact, over 95 per cent of tennis fans round the world play ONLY doubles. Yet, when it comes to watching, they watch mostly singles.

No wonder, today, at the highest levels, tennis is mainly identified as a one-on-one sport and its not-so-poor yet terminally ill country cousin, doubles, is the forgotten ``other game''.

NIRMAL SHEKAR

from Melbourne

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