My name is Robert J. Ray.
I am a loyal subscriber. I have paid extra for ten years to watch tennis on TCC. I am a tennis player.
My age is 83.
I take lessons and I play senior doubles and I watch doubles on the Tennis Channel.
And I’m curious. Why don’t your commentators use their hard-earned professional expertise to describe the secrets of winning doubles? Here’s why.
At the pro level, doubles games move at light-speed—the points are short, the movements are electric. Pro doubles is a game which requires sage analysis: insights from a seasoned tennis brain to explain hand signals, players poaching, ball interception, and where to serve from the ad court if the receiver is left-handed and kills all wide balls.
How hard would that be, Tennis Channel?
Because right now doubles takes second position behind singles, the arena of big money. The unsung doubles heroes (1,000 titles for the Bryans and Daniel Nestor) are not household words. Doubles players are older. They play on the outer courts, halfway to the moon. They make less money. Unlike hot pro singles, professional doubles has no mano-a-mano gladiatorial magic that fills the great cathedrals of the game.
But doubles is fun. Remember the Laver Games from 2017? Federer and Nadal, two of the great singles players in history, partnered up for Team Europe. A lob from Team America (red shirts) tangled our heroes up, both of them going for the same lob—lack of communication with your partner, a no-no in doubles—and then they figured out there were two guys on the court, and they had fun. And they beat Team America.
Does your TTC organization do viewer surveys? What percentage of viewers play tennis? How many play singles? How many play doubles? How many play smart doubles?
In smart doubles, the players communicate. They hit strategic shots. They call for the ball. Mine! Yours! Out! (“OUT!” means Let that one go.)
The play is fast. And the speed of hi-octane doubles produces confusion in the viewer. Speed calls for expert commentary. When the net person flashes a hand signal—hand behind the back, fingers flexing and pointing—the TC commentators could demystify the process with a simple explanation.
- Index finger points right: serve wide.
- Hand in a fist: I’m staying.
That kind of basic instruction could give the mystified viewer something concrete to focus on. But most of your doubles commentators don’t bother with analysis. Instead they comment on the shots, the kills, the mistakes—echoing singles commentary.
Instead of educating your Tennis Channel viewers, making them smarter about the game of tennis, your commentators fill the air with hype, like the team with the most victories—here the Bryan Boys win out, over 1,000 doubles titles—and then the commentators toss in names of prominent doubles players like Klaasen and Nestor, like Stepanek and Soares. Names like Bhupati, Lopez, Kontinen, the Woodies—when they could have been educating the public on how to understand the complex game of doubles.
Just one new tennis tip would help the viewers:
- Where to stand when your partner is serving.
- Where to stand when your partner is receiving.
- The percentage play for return of serve from the deuce court.
- The percentage play for return of serve from the ad court.
Because the doubles action is lightning fast there is no time for the untutored viewers to get grooved to a signature singles style—Nadal’s loopy forehands, Federer’s backhand slice, Jack Sock’s ball rotation.
Example:
The time is late summer, 2018. The place is Cincinnati. Singles matches have been rained out, opening screen time for doubles. The players warm up and the commentators, with a few laudatory asides, point to the assumptive winners: Henry Kontinen and John Peers. Kontinen is Finnish, blonde, confident at 28. Peers is Australian, serious, confident at 30.
Last year, Kontinen and Peers were the ATP Number One Doubles Team world-wide. So the indirect, nuanced prediction that K and P will slaughter the enemy has the ring of prophecy.
The warm-up is quick and decisive. Kontinen wears a white headband and a slight smirk. Peers wears expensive goggle-like shades and a yellow ball cap. Both Kontinen and Peers have big serves and big overhead smashes. They can jump up to crack the ball. They can angle it off. At the net, they hit winning volleys. They have enviable reflexes, diving for low balls, making impossible gets. But the shot that brings Oohs from the small crowd is the dink, hit soft and cagey, to either alley, while their opponents stand, numb with disbelief, in the back court.
During the warm-up, the TTC commentators build a case for K and P winning the match. The opponents, two singles guys, don’t have even a slim chance of winning. Ho-hum, we’re stuck here, might as well talk about something else.
So that’s what they do. The commentators shift away from the doubles match—when they could be educating their viewers about a possible strategy for the beleaguered singles players—but instead they lay on the laudations, building a case for victory. Since Kontinen and Peers have won lots of doubles matches, against real doubles opponents, the commentators pick them as winners.
As the first set progresses, the praise for K and P grows in weight and mass:
“Wonderful. Excellent service rhythm.”
“If you blinked, you’d have missed that game.”
“Great Job.”
“Pretty Sharp.”
I agree. There is great beauty when K and P move together. Kontinen opens the hole. Peers hits the ball into the open court. Together, K and P are like surgeons carving up the court, bringing this comment from the commentators: “It’s like poetry to a good doubles team when they move together.”
The enemy players in this early-round doubles match are a couple of singles specialists. The lefty is Fernando Verdasco from Spain. The righty is Michael Kohlschreiber of Germany. Both men have the loopy wind-up forehands that work better in singles. Verdasco’s backhand is two-handed. Kohlschreiber’s backhand is long and sweeping and glorious. They drop the first set. But between points, they are chatting. They look worried. Are they chatting strategy? Better hope so, because they lose the first set, 2-6.
In the box, the commentators have veered away from the doubles match to chat about upcoming singles matches. The old guard vs. the new hopefuls. Who will replace Federer? Who will replace Nadal? What about this guy Zverev?
The second set has a different feel. Verdasco gets his lefty twist going sideways, out of reach. Kohlschreiber nails the corners of the service court. Kontinen and Peers start missing their returns of serve. The energy field shifts from the hot-shot doubles players to the mis-matched singles players. The commentators come awake. In the first set, they were laudatory in their praise of the doubles champs. In the second set, as K and P fall behind, the commentary becomes over-supportive. The commentators are still down on Kohlschreiber, even when he cracks a high backhand service return up the alley, out of enemy reach. A winner.
Down on the court, the chit-chat between serves has Kohlschreiber and Verdasco grinning. This doubles stuff is fun.
At the net, Verdasco hits his own version of the dink-volley, left-handed, with a little controlled wrist-flick, making his racquet into a spoon.
The commentators, confused by the better play of the singles boys, fight back with praise for Kontinen’s dinks. And they are quite lovely. To hit his own special dinks, Kontinen smothers the net. This guy Kontinen has the gift of perfect touch. He gets praise for his dinks.
But then Kohlschreiber hits his own version of the dink-ball. Not as flashy as Kontinen, but still a winner that leaves the Doubles Boys rooted to mid-court. But does Kohlschreiber get any praise? Not from these commentators. Instead, the commentators define Kohlschreiber’s winning dink as a “dangerous play.”
So, even while his team is winning, even while he makes the shot, Kohlschreiber stays in the commentarial dog-house. Is there unintentional bias here? The disparaging commentator tone started to change when Verdasco and Kohlschreiber won the second set on a tie-breaker. But the tone still echoed through the play as these two Singles Boys won the third-set tie-breaker, where even the commentators were holding their breath.
What’s going on with the TTC doubles commentary?
A similar bias-laden commentary showed up in an early round match between two mis-matched doubles teams. On our side of the net, Mike Bryan had teamed up with Jack Sock, a burly American who earns praise and expressions of wonder for his forehand, based on other-worldly ball rotations that will eventually give him a version of Tennis Elbow. Here’s a comparison:
Nadal: 3391 rotations.
Sock: 3337 rotations.
Federer: 2925 rotations.
Lurking in the commentary is an unstated prediction: Because of Jack Sock’s ball rotations, Sock and Bryan will win this doubles match.
Mike Bryan is a doubles wizard. He is one half of the Bryan Twins Tennis Legacy. These guys have won over 1000 titles. Sixteen of those were Grand Slams. The Bryans perch like tennis gods at the top of men’s doubles history. Emerson and Laver, Rosewall and Hoad, Hewitt and McMillan, the Renshaw brothers, Daniel Nestor and anyone, the Woodies, McEnroe and Fleming—all rank below the Bryans.
A few weeks before Cincinnati, Mike Bryan teamed with Jack Sock to win the Wimbledon Doubles. Bryan teamed up with Sock because Bob Bryan (the lefty) was sidelined by an injury. For Wimbledon, the Bryan doubles magic carried over. The huge fact of the Wimbledon victory, mixed with the steely furor of Jack Sock’s forehand and the mystical ball rotations, took center stage in the commentary booth at Cincinnati.
There was no such eager airtime for the enemies of Sock and Bryan, a couple of Spaniards, one short and quick, one tall and left-handed. These were the Lopez Boys, Marc and Fernando, sometimes called the Lopez Tennis Brothers, who beat the Bryan Brothers in Paris at Stade Roland Garros in 2016. Could that distant victory be a harbinger?
Marc Lopez, the short Lopez, is quick, with great hands and enviable foot speed. Feliciano Lopez is tall and left-handed. His lefty serve dazzles with speed and spin. A sliced ball, it is often untouchable.
These Spaniards are born entertainers, fun to watch. But Sock and Bryan ate up the opening remarks of both commentators, one American woman and one American man, who lavished the on-court Americans with wondrous praise, ignoring the flashy Spaniards. When Bryan hits a lob that lands three feet out, the commentary drops into teacher-mode: “A little more sharp, a little more crisp.” Doesn’t that smack of favoritism? Why aren’t the commentators talking doubles strategy? Maybe the only strategy visible today is ball rotation, courtesy of Jack Sock’s forehand.
This same sad, soft-spoken apologetic advice gets more intense as the Wimbledon Doubles Champs fall farther behind: “A little slow, a little sluggish.” Or this sad note of regretfulness: “They had a good look at the ball and couldn’t close it out.”
The Lopez Boys won the match, 6-3, 6-0. Their tactics worked better. But what were their tactics? How do doubles tactics differ from singles tactics? I play doubles twice a week. At 83, I’m still taking lessons that reveal the subtleties of doubles strategy. Where to stand. Where to hit the ball so your partner can close it out.
Have the TC commentators played doubles? Why don’t they share their secrets? How would they have played these entertaining Spaniards? This is a doubles match. Why don’t they give the viewers some insight into the game of professional doubles? After that build-up of Sock and Bryan, why did they leave us wondering about the value of doubles commentary?
And what would happen if the TC helped to educate viewers on the beauty and precision of doubles? Maybe a one-minute tip? Maybe a 5-minute clinic? Maybe an online doubles clinic?
What would happen if your commentators focused on strategy, like Rennae Stubbs did a year or so ago, calling a Martina Hingis match, not only solving the mystery of doubles but also pointing out the strategy of a true doubles genius?
Does anyone at TTC remember that? Or is the wisdom of Rennae Stubbs forever lost in the glitter of aging singles heroes battling to the death in the great groaning arenas pumping the brand of Corporation X?
