This is a guest post by Peter Wetz.
With all the drama in the tennis world right now–paradoxically despite the lack of official match results–a dry analytical article might be just what you need. And what better opportunity than quarantine to work through my long list of articles to write?
In June 2019, Feliciano Lopez had to complete five matches in two days. Not because he had to hop between tournaments as a 22-year-old Jo-Wilfried Tsonga did in 2007, but because Lopez went deep into both the singles and doubles draws on the grass courts at Queen’s Club, ultimately winning both titles.
Lopez won all four of his singles matches in the deciding set, and there was not much time to celebrate and recover after the final, because the doubles title match awaited. Partnering a rehabilitating Andy Murray seems to have been a sensible decision based on the fact that Murray’s most lopsided head-to-head of 11-0 is against Lopez. By doing so, Lopez could be guaranteed to avoid facing Murray in the doubles draw. An unusual strategy–and probably not his top consideration in choosing a partner–but it worked.
Lifting two trophies on finals day happens quite often at the Challenger tour, but is unusual on the main tour, where the best singles players often skip the doubles draw entirely. But how rare is it? And has it changed over the years? Longtime fans will immediately think of John McEnroe and his nearly equal tally of doubles titles (78) and singles titles (77). The modest title counts of Roger Federer (6) and Rafael Nadal (11) pale in comparison, even though the Spaniard is an exceptional doubles player.
Let’s take a look at the instances when a player won both trophies at the same tournament since 2005.
Year Tournament Player (Partner) 2005 Dusseldorf Tommy Haas (Alexander Waske) 2005 Halle Roger Federer (Yves Allegro) 2005 Basel Fernando Gonzalez (Agustin Calleri) 2006 Vina del Mar Jose Acasuso (Sebastian Prieto) 2007 Chennai Xavier Malisse (Dick Norman) 2007 Delray Beach Xavier Malisse (Hugo Armando) 2007 Munich Philipp Kohlschreiber (Mikhail Youzhny) 2007 Dusseldorf Agustin Calleri (Juan Ignacio Chela) 2008 Monte Carlo Rafael Nadal (Tommy Robredo) 2008 Dusseldorf Robin Soderling (Robert Lindstedt) 2009 Costa Do Sauipe Tommy Robredo (Marcel Granollers) 2009 San Jose Radek Stepanek (Tommy Haas) 2009 Newport Rajeev Ram (Jordan Kerr) 2010 Memphis Sam Querrey (John Isner) 2010 Marseille Michael Llodra (Julien Benneteau) 2010 Bucharest Juan Ignacio Chela (Lukasz Kubot) 2011 Tokyo Andy Murray (Jamie Murray) 2012 Zagreb Mikhail Youzhny (Marcos Baghdatis) 2013 Newport Nicolas Mahut (Edouard Roger Vasselin) 2014 Newport Lleyton Hewitt (Chris Guccione) 2017 Montpellier Alexander Zverev (Mischa Zverev) 2018 Gstaad Matteo Berrettini (Daniele Bracciali) 2019 London Feliciano Lopez (Andy Murray)
Two things may catch one’s eye when looking at the list: First, since 2011 the double-title feat occurred slightly less than once per year. But before that it happened several times a year with the sole exception of 2006. Second, the only player who managed to win both titles at a Masters event is Nadal at Monte Carlo in 2008.
It is obvious, and a frequent topic of tennis hipster talk, that top singles players do not care as much about doubles anymore, certainly not as much as McEnroe and his peers did. One line of argument is that the way that modern doubles tennis has evolved to become more and more different from the singles game. In order to keep up with that, singles players would need to adapt their practice routine, which might detract from potential singles success. Long story short, the argument is that doubles became too “difficult” for singles players.
But let’s look at the numbers. The following graphs show the composition of draws since the year 2000. We see the percentage of players in singles draws, who also entered the doubles draw of the same tournament for three different categories (A = All, M = Masters, G = Grand Slams). The first graph shows the numbers for top 50 singles players and the second graph for top 10 singles players.
The first graph is not very dramatic, but it establishes that the habits of top 50 singles players have been quite steady over the past 20 years among all tournament categories. Since the year 2000, irrespective of event categories, between 41 and 47 percent of top 50 players entering a singles draw also entered the doubles draw of the same tournament.*
The second graph shows us that the numbers for top 10 players are a different story entirely. Ignoring tournament categories, the number of top 10 players participating in doubles draws has plummeted from 35 to 22 percent. While the numbers also decreased if we only look at Masters tournaments, it is interesting that it remains higher than the overall number. This can likely be explained by the fact that the prize money for doubles at Masters events is significantly higher than at regular tour events. Often the organizers of these tournaments also have the financial power to persuade top players to play doubles in order to–I am hypothesizing here–increase ticket sales or attendance in the early days of a tournament. See the Indian Wells Masters for instance, which is known for its stellar doubles draw every year.
The most drastic decline in doubles attendance by top 10 singles players can be seen at the Grand Slams, however. While in the period between the years 2000 and 2004 every fifth singles player took part in the doubles, in the past five years only one out of 183 singles entries also appeared in the doubles draw. The sole exception (of course!) was Dominic Thiem, who entered the 2016 US Open doubles competition ranked number 10 in singles with his countryman Tristan Samuel Weissborn.
As with many analyses it is difficult to provide a definitive answer to the question at hand. But the numbers help us to see the size of the effects and theorize about its causes. That doubles competition has become more and more specialized certainly has its validity. At the same time, the numbers also suggest that top singles players simply optimize for prize money, which means focusing on singles, not doubles. If there was a McEnroe-esque player on tour today (as Rafa might be), he just wouldn’t play enough doubles to win nearly 80 titles.
However, it is hard to tell which was first: The decline of singles players playing doubles due to reasons such as financial motivation (among possibly many others), or the players’ realization that they simply cannot keep up with the elite doubles competition? One thing may be for sure though: Had TennisTV already existed a few decades ago, it would have shown a lot more doubles than it does now.
—
* Note that there is the possibility that a few singles players might have been willing to enter the doubles draw of a tournament, but couldn’t, because their ranking was too low among other reasons. However, I think this affects the analysis only marginally, if at all.
—
Peter Wetz is a computer scientist interested in racket sports and data analytics based in Vienna, Austria.