'Struggling for beauty': The rule change doubles need to stay relevant

John Fitzgerald at the 2024 Newcombe Medal Awards. (Getty/Graham Denholm)

The first time I watched doubles tennis, I was instantly hooked. Walking around the grounds of the Sydney tennis tournament in my early teens, I stumbled upon the Bryan Brothers, the identical twins who had firmly established themselves as the GOATs of doubles, with their silky smooth volleys, perfect single-handed backhands and a synergy that was hard to believe as they moved in unison around the court.

Although they lost early in the tournament, they quickly drew me in and encouraged me to seek out more doubles. 

That brought me into the world of Leander Paes and Radek Stepanek, who volleyed like no others until, of course, I saw Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci, who barely rolled serves over the net but got every ball back once they advanced as a pair with such venom. It totally defied belief.

As the 2010s rolled on, it only got better, culminating in the 2020 ATP Cup, which had some of the most exciting doubles matches ever, with Nick Kyrgios and Alex de Minaur securing an epic win in Sydney for Australia being a highlight. 

But as the years have progressed, some of the best exponents of the doubles game have come and gone, with the Bryans retiring in the COVID pandemic before Casey Dellacqua and Sam Stosur hung up their racquets and men's doubles suffering a trifecta at the end of last year with Ivan Dodig, Rohan Bopanna and Jamie Murray all playing their last matches.

Through some of the tougher years for doubles, where it has been very much in the spotlight, I have remained a staunch advocate of the doubles game and what it can bring to the sport. But, as the game becomes increasingly serve and return dominant, even I am convinced that doubles needs to change. 

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Anyone who has watched men's doubles recently will know just how dominated by serve and return it has become. Often, the players will serve massive and the returners will take huge cuts on low-percentage plays in the hope that they come off. There is less room for the volleying mastery of a Paes or a Murray, as everyone is focusing on the serve and return. This has meant that men's doubles has become a lot more difficult to watch as aggressive baseliners have begun to dominate the rankings.

The problem is less pronounced in women's doubles with players like Errani and Su-Wei Hsieh still at the top of the rankings, but this has become part of the reason why mixed doubles has become exciting, as there is a strategic cat and mouse, which creates a fun watch.

I spoke to Calvin Betton, coach of Henry Patten and Harri Heliövaara at the Australian Open a few years ago, who said that the product was not the issue with men's doubles, rather it was the lack of marketing. 

"We keep hearing that the product's not good. I think the product is excellent," said Betton. "I don't know where this idea has come from that doubles is rubbish, it's absolute nonsense. The product is excellent, [the tours] just don't want to market it."

While this is absolutely true, there is beginning to be a deficiency in the product that cannot be ignored. At a similar time, I interviewed nine-time Grand Slam doubles champion and Tennis Australia commentator John Fitzgerald, suggesting that the biggest reason for the increasingly serve and return-dominated game was players encroaching the net too quickly. 

"I love doubles, and I want it to survive and prosper, but I think that the skill of the game has been lost to a large degree because the players now serve big with modern racquets, and they've incorporated this tactic, which is getting super close to the net and running across and picking cherries at the net," he said. "It's made the game like a crapshoot where they hit [the ball] away with a not very skilful volley, or they just get passed down the sideline."

This invokes an interesting comparison to pickleball. To prevent players from simply swatting away easy balls after the serve, pickleball requires both the server and the server's partner to stand behind the baseline for the first two shots. Then, it is a rush to the net for both teams, leading to some great tactical play and net tussles, which is exactly what doubles wants to bring back.

Such a rule would be less necessary in women's doubles (but it could still work as Errani and Paolini do it frequently to great success) or in mixed, where there are already so many tactical battles. But in men's doubles, requiring both the server and the server's partner to stay behind the baseline could level the playing field and bring back some of the court craft that we have been missing. 

"I think [rule changes] are probably the only way to fix it. There needs to be some sort of restriction so players aren't allowed to get so close to the net," Fitzgerald continued. "That would force them to volley with more skill and technique, because at the moment, they just hit it away without much technique.

"Sometimes it looks spectacular because it's fast, but it's actually a very simple, non-sophisticated way of finishing a point. If there's a way for the governing bodies to come together and change that, then I think there's a big future for doubles still. If they don't change it, then a lot of skill will continue to be lost, and that breaks my heart, because it is a very skilful game, the way it used to be played. Not so much now."

Fitzgerald also said that he didn't blame players for trying to take advantage of new technologies, which allowed this kind of play, but it was time for the authorities to step in and try to bring it back to the way it was. 

"I wouldn't blame any people or players for doing it," he said. "I just think the rules, as they stand, allow it. The court is the same size, the net is the same height, but racquet and string technology have enabled players to serve faster and more consistently.

"It's been a gradual process where players realised that if they get close to the net, it's such a tough position for the opponent. It's actually allowed players to get away with less skill, and it's also allowed less skilful players to win matches. So I don't blame individuals, but the way the game has evolved is detrimental to doubles as a spectacle. You get less skill as a way to win matches."

For Fitzgerald, if the beauty of the doubles game could be restored, he believes it would be a better marketing signal for the governing bodies to begin promoting doubles more. 

"I think the evolution of doubles has been detrimental to its visual appeal," he shared. "From my perspective as a tennis lover and a doubles fan, the doubles game now is struggling for beauty. Of course, there are still great moments, but I think a large part of what made it special has been taken away."

The tennis world has seen that doubles can be an amazing product, with mixed doubles arguably being as popular as it has ever been. It is now time for men's doubles to move with the times and introduce some rule changes that will ensure the prosperity of the discipline for decades to come. 

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