McEnroe Doesn’t Like The State of The Doubles Game

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 22nd August 2013

McEnroe Doesn’t Like The State of The Doubles Game

epa03307514 Former US tennis great John McEnroe arrives for his match against Michael Stich of Germany 15 July 2012 in Hamburg during the 'Match of the Legends'. A total of 32 professional tennis players participate in the ATP World Tour 500 untill 22 July 2012. EPA/Angelika Warmuth |

The Bryan brothers are going for the Grand Slam at the US Open and have already clinched the year end No. 1 ranking, even though it’s only August. A lot of other top doubles players keep switching partners and it appears that the Bryans are now the only consistently popular doubles duo on tour.

John McEnroe, who won seven Grand Slam singles titles as well seven Grand Slam doubles titles, likes to watch his fellow former Stanford Cardinal players win crowns, but doesn’t like the status of today’s double circuit overall.

“The Bryans are doing a great job trying to prop up doubles,” said McEnroe who will work as an analyst for ESPN as well as CBS during the US Open. “Without them it would be in even worse shape than it is. They can only play who is in front of them.

“They’ve done a great job, especially this year. Even if they’re 35, I believe, and have won so many events and are trying to hone in on the Slam. As far as doubles, it’s on life support. At this stage, it’s been proven by the singles players that there is no real advantage for them to play doubles. Roger [Federer] doesn’t play much doubles, although I think it propelled him to a US Open win in 2008. When he won the doubles at the Olympics, it gave him confidence using some net play that he took advantage of winning the Open that year.

“I think that the singles players could play doubles. It’s like if someone said to me, Who would you want to play doubles with if you could pick somebody?’ The top of my list would be these guys, Roger, Rafa [Nada], Novak [Djokovic]. I think that those guys could potentially be great doubles players if they put their mind to it. Having said that, at this stage told maybe they would be better off trying to start something on their own to show that it’s viable or doable that people would support it.”

McEnroe said that there are too many so-called no-name players competing in doubles, which makes it tough for tournaments to promote them

“You’ve got a lot of guys that very, very few, if any, people know them,” he said. “Not even in the tennis world a lot of these guys are known. I know that it helped me play better singles working on my doubles game, especially as a kid, learning how to volley there when you’re too small to cover the net game. And it’s a shame. It’s a great game. Certainly as you older and can’t move as well you only have to cover half the court, so you can still show what you’re made of in a way or the hands you had or the advantages you can bring to the table. But at this stage, they’ve tried a lot of different things, none of which seem to work. Shorten them, tiebreakers at the end, whatever they may do, but at this stage it’s difficult to get the singles players ‑‑ especially at a major.

“Sometimes you see them go to a Cincinnati or a Montreal and play a match or two, but they’re just honing themselves for the singles. Until there is a real change in the game where volleys become more of a premium or strategy or positioning at the net or moving forward comes into play more, I don’t think you’re going to see many, if at all, of the top players playing doubles.”