More than thirst traps: The French pair fighting for doubles attention

Sadio Doumbia (left) and Fabien Reboul (right). (Getty/Georg Wendt)

As the tennis world turns its attention to Roland Garros, France's leading men's doubles team is attracting attention for more than just its results.

Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul arrive in Paris as one of the world's top doubles pairings and genuine contenders to make a deep run on home clay.

Australian tennis fans will be somewhat familiar with the duo after their exploits during the summer here. 

The pair defeated the special entry team of Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis in Brisbane, then became cult favourites among online followers for something less common in doubles: a visible, funny and often thirst-trappy social media presence.

Their accounts mix tournament updates with shirtless photos, poolside snapshots and tongue-in-cheek videos, offering the sort of access and personality that doubles players rarely get to show through official tennis channels.

That has made Doumbia and Reboul stand out in a part of the sport that still struggles to be seen.

From Challenger grinders to the world's top tournaments

The journey to the top levels of doubles tennis has been anything but conventional.

Doumbia considered leaving the sport after struggling on the Futures circuit, moved to the United States to study finance and risk management, and once thought his tennis career was finished.

"I thought: 'Tennis is over'," he told L’Équipe.

He returned to France after a breakup, began playing again and eventually reached the top 250 in singles.

The doubles partnership began when Reboul was considering his own future in the sport.

"Fabien told me: 'I'm fed up with tennis, I want to stop, unless we play doubles'," Doumbia said.

"I wanted to continue in singles. I loved it. I followed him a little reluctantly at the beginning."

The decision changed both careers.

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Reboul and Doumbia have since won six ATP titles, including Bucharest this year and just missed out on another last week in Hamburg, making the final.  

They sit seventh in the ATP doubles race this year, have made a Masters 1000 final and established themselves as regulars at Grand Slams. 

The move was also built on Doumbia's belief that Reboul had the tools to succeed.

"He's the centre of the project," Doumbia said.

"I think he's better than me. That's not putting myself down; he has more qualities for doubles. I try to help him as much as possible."

Their ambitions have grown with their results.

Asked recently about their ceiling, Reboul said the pair could not imagine falling short if they stayed healthy.

"Given the way we're improving, and if we stay healthy, it's hard for us to imagine not winning a Grand Slam or Masters 1000," he said. 

Building a following one post at a time

Rather than waiting for attention to arrive, Doumbia and Reboul have actively embraced social media.

Their following is not built only on shirtless pics; it is also built on the relationship behind them.

The pair have played together for more than four years and, according to Reboul, have stuck exclusively with each other whenever both have been fit.

"We've never played with another player from the moment we were healthy," he said.

Asked for the right word to describe that, Reboul did not hesitate.

"Loyalty."

Doumbia describes the bond in more dramatic terms.

"It's even stronger than two brothers, it's passionate," he mentioned to L’Équipe.

That passion has produced plenty of stories.

Doumbia recalled one defeat in China that almost became physical.

"One year, in China, we lost in the second round. We nearly fought in the locker room," he shared. "He, so he wouldn’t hit me, punched the wall and hurt himself."

The pair's reputation for chaos goes beyond match days.

Doumbia said he was once hard on Reboul during a training session after Reboul had just been dumped by his girlfriend.

"I was serving kick serves, he was hitting backhand returns, and he was crying," Doumbia said.

"The guys beside the court were looking at us. That's why everyone thinks we're crazy."

The chemistry is part of what fans see online and gravitate to, not just the shirtless pics and booty shots. 

They have almost 40k followers between them, which isn't huge by modern-athlete standards, but it's their high engagement that attracts attention. 

They've got a sponsorship with Tecnifibre, and their games, at least at the Australian Open, had more fans watching than your usual run-of-the-mill doubles match. 

Thirst-traps reveal a bigger doubles issue

The larger issue may have less to do with shirtless photos and more to do with how little exposure doubles receive compared with singles.

British coach Calvin Betton, who has worked extensively in doubles, including with Wimbledon champion Henry Patten, believes the ATP could do far more to showcase the discipline.

"They don't do anything at all to promote doubles, and that's kind of their position," Betton told The First Serve.

"There are always good doubles points, and it doesn't cost them anything. Commit to putting one, two or three doubles posts up a day on Tennis TV, and it would give a massive boost to the sport."

For Betton, Doumbia and Reboul's popularity demonstrates exactly what fans are missing.

"What Doumbia and Reboul are doing is brilliant. That's very much in their character," he said.

"They're two good-looking lads, and they're just great. They're very charismatic, they're great fun to be around, and they're genuinely best mates with each other. That's how they behave all the time.

"Nothing about that is inauthentic. That is genuinely what they're like all the time. I'm a massive fan of them as players and as people. They're good mates with all of us, and what they're doing is bang on."

Betton believes their success highlights the personalities that exist throughout doubles but rarely receive the same exposure as singles stars.

"What fans would get is real characters in doubles. I think what you'd find is some tennis players fans could relate to, interact with and become fans of," he said. 

The challenge, Betton says, is that doubles players are often prevented from promoting themselves using their own match footage.

"What they can't get is actual points from their matches because they take them down," he said.

"If you put an actual post up, they'll take it down within 24 hours. We've asked them, if they're not going to put the points on, can we put the points on ourselves? And they keep saying no."

This means the way Doumbia and Reboul have built attention around themselves is one of the few options available.

If doubles players cannot rely on the tour to market them, and cannot freely use the clips that show what they do best, personality becomes one of the few things they can control.

Does it go too far?

Not everyone has viewed the duo's online presence positively.

Journalist Ben Rothenberg previously highlighted a 2022 Instagram story posted by Reboul featuring a near-kiss photograph and romantic caption involving fellow male French player Maxence Broville.

"I did not fall in love with you, your love pushed me to it," Reboul captioned the image, according to Rothenberg.

The post generated widespread speculation and coverage across mainstream and LGBTQIA+ media, with some fans initially believing it may have represented a coming-out moment.

When no explanation followed, the response became more sceptical.

"If he is trolling, then I would be absolutely disgusted with both of them," one Reddit user wrote, as quoted by Rothenberg.

"I really hope it was a genuine post."

Another wrote: "How disappointing. Coming out is such a difficult and brave thing to do, and to them it's just a punchline."

Rothenberg noted that many observers eventually concluded the image was likely "a 'bro' joke".

At the Australian Open this year, Rothenberg argued that the discussion had not entirely disappeared.

He wrote that Reboul continued to cultivate the audience built around that image through a social media presence that "could safely be described as gay-baiting".

As evidence, Rothenberg pointed to one recent post where fellow French player Arthur Rinderknech responded with fishing emojis, which he interpreted as a joke about Reboul "reeling in" followers.

When Rothenberg later asked Reboul directly about the original post and the discussion it generated, the Frenchman declined to engage.

"I don't want to talk about my sexuality here, sorry," Reboul said. "I don't want to talk about this."

Winning attention on and off the court

None of this diminishes what Doumbia and Reboul have achieved as players.

Their rise from Challenger events to the biggest stages in tennis remains one of the more impressive doubles stories of recent years.

The French pair have earned their place among the world's best through years of travel, sacrifice and persistence.

They now arrive at Roland Garros as the 11th seeds, and one of France's strongest hopes in the doubles draw.

A deep run in Paris would bring the attention they most want: recognition for their tennis.

But in a sport where doubles still fights for visibility, Doumbia and Reboul also understand that results are only part of the battle.

To survive in the modern tennis world, they are competing for eyeballs off the court as well as inside the stadium.

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