And the hole was even deeper: the president of the ATP for Europe at the time, a citizen named Horst Klosterkemper, declared at the time that “doubles had essentially become a charity event for players.” Needless to say, the phrase provoked outrage among doubleists, especially Mark Knowles, who was vice-president of the Players’ Council.
It was then that a group of more than 40 tennis players, led by brothers Bob and Mike Bryan (as I wrote above, other times!), announced during the 2005 US Open that they would sue the ATP. During the litigation, there was a change of command at the entity, and Etienne de Villiers, who replaced Mark Myles as CEO, was more favorable to the duos. In 2006, the ATP ended up backing down, and the process was considered closed. The concession made by the double players was to accept the implementation of the no-ad and the match tie-break. Today, we all know that this also did nothing to attract the best simplists to the doubles circuit. Just like the changes tested in Madrid…
Things I think I think:
– A controversial consequence of shorter doubles games: the measure lengthened the athletes’ careers. Today, the youngest doubles top 10 is 32 years old. there are seven athletes over 35 and two over 40. Rohan Bopanna, now 44, is the current Australian Open champion. He partnered with “young” Ebden, 36.
– I say that it is a controversial consequence because while the doubles players celebrate the chance to play for longer, the haters (among them, tennis players who were good simplists, but never tried the doubles circuit full time) find it absurd to see that the elite of the The sport is dominated by veterans – including some in their forties.
– Would a new process have similarly positive results for double actors? Hard to know. I repeat: times are different; athletes, ditto. I have my doubts whether the current veteran duo elite would have the energy for a legal fight.
