Highlighting a host of issues that the sport needs to address in the near future, Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley raised concerns about the inability of doubles tennis to attract large audiences in recent times.
Tiley, who has been the director of the year’s first Grand Slam since 2006, was quoted as saying by The Guardian that tennis as a sport might have lost its way.
This year’s Australian Open, which had begun a day earlier, drew a record attendance of more than a million people through the fortnight. With an aim to hold the attention of a younger generation, the tournament held a music concert inside Melbourne Park and kept courtside bars among other things. However, the crowds in the main stadiums remained slim for doubles matches.
For instance, the number of people inside the Rod Laver Arena on Saturday reduced significantly for the men’s doubles final which was played immediately after the women’s singles final. The women’s doubles final that happened the following day didn’t attract a big crowd either.
“We’re not meaning enough,” said Tiley. “We’ve got to get things right, and we can’t keep spinning our wheels on things, and make some decisions. I take an approach from a leadership point of view that I’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission because otherwise you’re just not going to be able to move at the speed that you can move at. The sport globally needs to look at it the same way, and do some things that really help it accelerate.”
{{/usCountry}}“We’re not meaning enough,” said Tiley. “We’ve got to get things right, and we can’t keep spinning our wheels on things, and make some decisions. I take an approach from a leadership point of view that I’d rather ask for forgiveness than permission because otherwise you’re just not going to be able to move at the speed that you can move at. The sport globally needs to look at it the same way, and do some things that really help it accelerate.”
{{/usCountry}}Tiley’s comments come as the ATP conducts a review of the doubles format, which could leave a major impact on the future of the professional tour along with the four Grand Slams.
The winners of the singles events at the Australian Open this year received prize money of 3.15 million Australian dollars each. The pairs that claimed the men’s and women’s doubles titles got AUD 7,30,000 each, while the mixed doubles champions took home AUD 1,65,000.
Doubles tennis in the past enjoyed considerable star power, with players like Bob and Mike Bryan, Serena and Venus Williams, John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova and Martina Hingis being major attractions for a number of years. That, however, hasn’t been the case in recent times as top names choose to stick to singles through their careers.