2025 ATP Doubles

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
Evolved or devolved?

I feel like no-ad scoring and match tiebreaks have been really detrimental to the ATP doubles tour in terms of the skills/tactics it encourages and the randomness it introduces.

The massive decrease in doubles prizemoney relative to singles prizemoney doesn't help either.
The no-ad + match tiebreak short format in smaller tournaments is quite different than the ad + full 3rd + match tiebreak long format in slams.

This leads to further specialization on the doubles tour. Some teams are slam specialists and others are 250 specialists.
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
Match Preview:

Last year, Heliovaara and Patten accomplished the rare feat of defeating 2 teams that were both ATP World #1 in the live Year-to-Date Rankings at the time of the match en route to a slam title, defeating #1 Bolelli/Vavassori in R1 and then new #1 Arévalo/Pavic in the QF at Wimbledon.

They have a chance defeat both of the the top two teams in the race again, having slain ATP World #2 Krawietz/Puetz in the semi. They face ATP World #1 Bolelli/Vavassori in tonight’s final.

The 39-year-old Simone Bolelli is a former World #36 in singles and also a former Australian Open champion, having won the title with compatriot and fellow singles expert Fabio Fognini in 2015 in a past life. He is hoping to rekindle his past glory. Vavassori, a decade his junior, has a chance to stake a claim as the highest ranked under-30 player in the world with a win tonight.

Bolelli/Vavassori are undefeated in 2025, going 9-0 in winning the Adelaide 250 prior to the AO. Heliovaara/Patten have 19-1 record as a team in slam matches and have never lost a match at the AO. Something has to give.
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
Top seed H/P have elected to skip the Dallas 500.

A/P are the Top seeded team in the Rotterdam 500, and they will look to capitalize on this to create some breathing space to extend their reign of ownership of the World #1 ranking.
 

ey039524

Hall of Fame
Saw that Krawietz/Puetz, Molteini/Gonzalez, Skupski/Salisbury, and Ram/Krajicek are getting in some practice together in Davis cup this weekend (advantage in being from the same country). The Italians are automatically through, so no practice for them. Too bad same country pairs split (the Belgians and whoever else).
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
The bottom QF in Rotterdam will pit the #3 and #4 teams in a the race against each other, in a rematch of the AO QF, which had no breaks of serve as the German vets topped the up-and-coming new British pairing. I expect the hard-serving duo of Cash/Glasspool to be a tougher out for Krawietz/Puetz this time around in the indoor conditions.
 

Moose Malloy

G.O.A.T.
USO making big changes to mixed doubles this year:

1. Reducing draw to 16 teams.
2. 8 teams based on singles entry(sorry dubs specialists) and 8 wildcards
3. Will be played the week before the singles draw starts(so the USO is now sort of a 3 week event I guess)
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
USO making big changes to mixed doubles this year:

1. Reducing draw to 16 teams.
2. 8 teams based on singles entry(sorry dubs specialists) and 8 wildcards
3. Will be played the week before the singles draw starts(so the USO is now sort of a 3 week event I guess)
Turning mixed into an exho is kinda sad. It devalues the mixed slams won by great doubles players of the past.

Martina, Leander, and Pavic didn’t just luck into all those mixed titles.
 

AM75

Hall of Fame
USO making big changes to mixed doubles this year:

1. Reducing draw to 16 teams.
2. 8 teams based on singles entry(sorry dubs specialists) and 8 wildcards
3. Will be played the week before the singles draw starts(so the USO is now sort of a 3 week event I guess)
This is shame, really. They tried to destroy mixed-doubles for years now and now they finally succeeded. I understand that ATP doesn't care, but I don't know why the WTA or ITF allow this.
 

ey039524

Hall of Fame
USO making big changes to mixed doubles this year:

1. Reducing draw to 16 teams.
2. 8 teams based on singles entry(sorry dubs specialists) and 8 wildcards
3. Will be played the week before the singles draw starts(so the USO is now sort of a 3 week event I guess)

This is really dumb. Some singles players tend to enter the mixed draw, but they usually don't fare so well. If you look at the past mixed slam champs, they're almost always dubs specialists. It is still dubs, after all.
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
Salisbury / Skupski eat another opening round bad loss today, losing in straight sets to challenger level journeymen Harrison / King.

I’ve been a skeptic of this pairing since before they played first match. The pieces just don’t fit right.

Both are weak servers. The 6’3” Salisbury defers serving first to his partner 3” shorter than him. Today Skupski got broken twice.

Neither guy can consistently put holds onto the board without facing pressure in most service games. Not a recipe for success.

Ram / Salisbury worked because both guys were strong in SP role to facilitate easy holds, and Ram rock solid server. Skupski decent on return but weak at net and weak on serve.
 
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ey039524

Hall of Fame
Salisbury / Skupski eat another opening round bad loss today, losing in straight sets to challenger level journeymen Harrison / King.

I’ve been a skeptic of this pairing since before they played first match. The pieces just don’t fit right.

Both are weak servers. The 6’3” Salisbury defers serving first to his partner 3” shorter than him. Today Skupski got broken twice.

Neither guy can consistently put holds onto the board without facing pressure in most service games. Not a recipe for success.

Ram / Salisbury worked because both guys were strong in SP role to facilitate easy holds, and Ram rock solid server. Skupski decent on return but weak at net and weak on serve.
Ouch, you called this unsuccessful pairing before the new season started.
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
Entry list for Doha 250 is out. All the best teams will be there. Stronger draw than either of the 500 tourneys this week.

Dallas 500 in particular might be the weakest 500 draw in history, with the better European teams opting for Rótterdam. They really need to revisit the scheduling. Dallas’s promotion to 500 didn’t attract better players.
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
Intriguing action in Rotterdam today.

The jury is still out on which Belgian divorcee is going to come out ahead after the split.

Vliegen is paired with the aging ex slam champ Ebden, who is on the decline.

Gille traded in for a younger model, going with NextGenner zielinski, who it could be argued is still on the way up, despite looking noticeably thicker this season than when he made a surprise run to the AO final 2 years ago.

Ebden/Vliegen lost in straight non-extended sets to Mektic/Venus today.

Gille/zielinski got by a fast-declining Dodig and NextGen singles guy Zhang.

Vavassori pulled his singles game out of the closet and split sets with FAA and advanced on a retirement, setting up a show court match against Carlos.
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
The double-lefty pairing of Zeballos-Shelton will debut in Dallas today. Seems like it would be tough to break these guys.
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
The double-lefty pairing of Zeballos-Shelton will debut in Dallas today. Seems like it would be tough to break these guys.
Zeballos only one broken so far. When Zeballos serves to ad court, Rinky is winning the matchup once it gets into a Zeballos-Rinky rally. Shelton’s slow reactions at net not helping. Returns are scooting right past Shelton’s face a few feet away before he even sticks a racquet out, making Zeballos’ serve game look more exposed than when he plays with an experienced SP like Granollers.
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
I’m not sure why the 5’9” short-limbed Hijikata would serve first in the set when the other guy is 6’5” long-limbed Michelsen? It almost cost a break, but they saved 3 bp in opening serve game of set 2.

Edit: Michelsen next guy to get broken. Wasn’t pretty.
 
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ey039524

Hall of Fame
Intriguing action in Rotterdam today.

The jury is still out on which Belgian divorcee is going to come out ahead after the split.

Vliegen is paired with the aging ex slam champ Ebden, who is on the decline.

Gille traded in for a younger model, going with NextGenner zielinski, who it could be argued is still on the way up, despite looking noticeably thicker this season than when he made a surprise run to the AO final 2 years ago.

Ebden/Vliegen lost in straight non-extended sets to Mektic/Venus today.

Gille/zielinski got by a fast-declining Dodig and NextGen singles guy Zhang.

Vavassori pulled his singles game out of the closet and split sets with FAA and advanced on a retirement, setting up a show court match against Carlos.
Zielinski gets a surprising amount of pop on his serve, despite being relatively short.
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
Can Dallas #1 seed Lammons/Withrow pull out of their season-opening funk today on home soil?

They are sitting at #33 in the race. Far off the pace of last year’s 9th place finish narrowly missing a spot in Turin.

Galloway/Behar are a sneaky tough out.
 

ey039524

Hall of Fame
Can Dallas #1 seed Lammons/Withrow pull out of their season-opening funk today on home soil?

They are sitting at #33 in the race. Far off the pace of last year’s 9th place finish narrowly missing a spot in Turin.

Galloway/Behar are a sneaky tough out.
Not sure why they're struggling as of late. They finished 9th the last two years (actually 8th the year before, but were bumped by AO champs Hijikata/Kubel).

Gonzalez/Miedler is another team that's struggling this year. I think we're going to see some partner shake ups soon.
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
Murray/Peers save 5 mp, including 4 in a row from down 2-6 in the second set tiebreak, to topple Johnson/Arends.

Johnson had 2 of those mp on his serve. He has been strong off the ground but sometimes unsteady on serve at closing time, and it bit him today.
 

ey039524

Hall of Fame
Just watched the Gille/Zielinski vs Mektic/Venus tiebreaks:
Zielinski is one of the best 20-something dubs players, along w/ Vavassori and Purcell. Another quadzilla. Not seeing how he let himself go. Impressive game.

Thanks for the tip for the Murray/Peers tb. I'm going to have to go back and watch. Modern dubs is all about who has the mental fortitude to execute under the maximum pressure situations. It's really exciting. Can't remember which teams recently had an 18-16 tb.
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
Just watched the Gille/Zielinski vs Mektic/Venus tiebreaks:
Zielinski is one of the best 20-something dubs players, along w/ Vavassori and Purcell. Another quadzilla. Not seeing how he let himself go. Impressive game.

Thanks for the tip for the Murray/Peers tb. I'm going to have to go back and watch. Modern dubs is all about who has the mental fortitude to execute under the maximum pressure situations. It's really exciting. Can't remember which teams recently had an 18-16 tb.
I found it amusing that when Gille and Zielinski walk by each other and the cam shows both from side view, zielinski is shorter but 50% thicker.

The AO final first set breaker went 18-16 to the Italians, saving 10 set points while Heliovaara’s return went on a walkabout.
 

ey039524

Hall of Fame
I found it amusing that when Gille and Zielinski walk by each other and the cam shows both from side view, zielinski is shorter but 50% thicker.

The AO final first set breaker went 18-16 to the Italians, saving 10 set points.
That's insane. Imagine if it were in the final tb and those were match points. I wonder what the record is for most match points saved.
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
That's insane. Imagine if it were in the final tb and those were match points. I wonder what the record is for most match points saved.
The scoring trend of the AO final played out eerily similar to last summer’s Wimbledon final. In the moment, it was obvious that both guys could feel the de ja vu, giving them confidence (as Harri explained in the post match presser).
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
Q. Roger-Vasselin & Gonzalez had an excellent 2023. Why did they split?
I don’t have inside info on this. But looking at their results:

They made the semis in Turin but never made it past the 3R of a slam that year.

This suggests their pairing was constructed better for the short format than for the slam format.

With no ad, and no full 3rd set, teams with lightweight returns or with 1 guy weaker on return but efficient servebotting are favored. The match is also always over in less than 90 minutes, favoring older dudes more.

The slam doubles format can stretch out to 3h, and you need both guys to be strong in end game and solid on both return and on serve to have success.
 

Drob

Hall of Fame
I don’t have inside info on this. But looking at their results:

They made the semis in Turin but never made it past the 3R of a slam that year.

This suggests their pairing was constructed better for the short format than for the slam format.

With no ad, and no full 3rd set, teams with lightweight returns or with 1 guy weaker on return but efficient servebotting are favored. The match is also always over in less than 90 minutes, favoring older dudes more.

The slam doubles format can stretch out to 3h, and you need both guys to be strong in end game and solid on both return and on serve to have success.
best teams w a great returner/rel. weak server?
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
Guess surprised bec ended on high note - Basel, Paris, Turin 12-1
Looking at resume, Gonzo only has reached QF of major 2x. RV has made QF 12x, so he’s the much better big-match player, and probably thought he could find upgrade to finish his career.
 

Drob

Hall of Fame
looks like only players in top 100 in doubles and singles are

Korda
Machach
Zverev
Shelton
Zang

who am i overlooking?
 
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