Tuesday 24 April 2018

' MENS DOUBLES, THE CHOOK RAFFLE OF THE TENNIS WORLD'

As always I feel compelled to follow up on past posts on this site. I was certain that the first round of Mens Doubles in Barcelona would produce some rather silly results.
That crystal ball of mine worked a treat......
Henri Kontinen and John Peers currently cannot take a trick, their first round loss to Bopanna and Roger- Vasselin is their second defeat in as many weeks without troubling the score board. There is no doubt whatsoever that the ATP have created something on the Tour that can only be described as 'challenging' for players trying to make a living playing doubles.
For a Mens Doubles team to be seeded two for the past two events and not win a match proves that the format is open to an upset or three well before the pointy end of any event. For a team to simply make it through to the last 8 is an effort, unlike in Mens Singles where the usual suspects keep turning up from the quarters onwards.
Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares quite possibly could not have believed their luck when they received the news that the Bryan Brothers who just won Monte Carlo would not in fact be making the trip to Barcelona as their first round opponents.
A late withdrawal from the most successful partnership in Mens Doubles history offered Murray and Soares a much easier path into the next round.
Apparently.
Two guys by the name of Nicolas Jarry and Guido Pella with a combined doubles ranking of just under 700 ( Pella 542, Jarry 145 ) had other ideas.
These two took out Murray and Soares in two tight sets 7-5, 7-5 which proves the theory of mine that Mens Dubs is nothing but a raffle.
The thing is this.
Singles players enter doubles simply for some extra practice, they are not relying on it to pay the electricity bill back home on the Riviera. So they swing, they swing hard and they swing with no thought of the repercussions of their actions. If they miss then they pick up a 'modest' amount of Euros then concentrate on their singles matches, if they win at doubles, well it's simply a bonus.
Pella is ranked 60 in singles, Jarry is 64.
They have each each won over $200,000 already in singles this year. It's only April. In doubles they have won a combined total of just over $34,000.
You tell me what these two rely on for a living.
In saying that however they are now assured of a handy bonus of $10,000 Euros each for taking out their much more fancied opponents who have won 47 doubles titles between them and over 8 million bucks in the process.
Mens Doubles, the 'chook raffle' of the Tennis World.
Will the ATP tinker around with the singles format and allow a doubles specialist to become competitive in singles ??
Oh the possibilities.........


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