Andy Roddick has swiftly gone from a phenomenal tennis player who competed with some of the very best, and seamlessly transitioned into one of the sport’s leading voices off the court.
His Served with Andy Roddick podcast offers weekly, and sometimes bi-weekly updates on all things involving the sport, from controversies to successes and everything in between.
And, he seldom pulls any punches in his assessment of things either, always wanting to provide the best information possible.
On this occasion, he certainly did just that.
US Open planning big change to the doubles
Chatting to US Open tournament director Stacey Allaster on this week’s iteration of the podcast, Roddick quizzed her about the future of the tournament which has already been such a huge commercial success.
However, whilst she was delighted by the progress made, particularly with the singles, doubles continues to fall behind.
Fortunately, she has an idea in mind to alter these fortunes, although not all will find it popular: ‘When you have singles players playing doubles, we have more people watching. We sold almost 10,000 tickets for Mixed Madness. The rest of the doubles matches of the US Open, there’s a lot of content in singles.
‘When you have long three or four hours singles matches back to back and then it’s a doubles match, you are only going to have those die-hards who love it.
‘I love doubles but the current product is not optimal for this macro, 894 matches we have, with 600 players and I don’t think it is just about marketing. It has to do with who is playing.
‘If there is a product on the shelf and not being bought, then manufacturers adapt the product. There needs to be some adaptation.
‘There needs to be some more singles players playing. I know that’s a tough situation. But here is the reality, 50% of the main draw players are finished on Thursday night, the first week on main draw. They are singles players who could play great doubles, but we have the sign-in for doubles on Sunday morning and if you are a singles player you are not playing, especially the guys. We still have a few women playing.
‘This would be unpopular but I think we have to reimagine it, that maybe the doubles draw starts on Saturday [after the first week]. So at least we have an opportunity for the guys to play and then the women who are out, then you might have more singles players playing.’
Tennis can’t afford more games for their singles stars
Whilst in an ideal world the biggest names would play both singles and doubles, physically that is just not possible.
Even with early exits from the former draw, the time they are then afforded to rest before the next competition is crucial in allowing bodies to heal ahead of the far more lucrative and important events elsewhere.
The only way to convince these singles stars to play both is to incentivise them, and even then doubles will seemingly never quite reach the same level of glory as singles successes.
Iga Swiatek has complained about the tennis schedule many times, as has Carlos Alcaraz more recently too.
They are unlikely to want to add even more matches to their calendar, no matter the prize.
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