French Open review: Death of doubles?

Winning titles has become a regular habit for the American Twins and they have done it yet again. Bob and Mike won their second title at Roland Garros, a long ten years after their first Grand slam and the only previous one on clay in 2003.There was hardly any doubt that they would clinch the title this year, given their form. Their form has not merely improved vastly to make them overwhelming favourites over the years, but also are virtually facing no competition today.

Here are some of the key developments from the doubles arena after this year’s French Open:

Veterans bite the dust

The defending champions from the last two years Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor did not team up this year. The veterans chose to play with former partners Horia Tecau and and Robert Lindstedt respectively. Both of them crashed out uncharacteristically in the second round. That is not all. Indian veterans and multiple slam champions Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes too exited in the early rounds. Bhupathi and Bopanna continued their bad run at the slams by losing in the first round after a superb run into the finals at Rome Masters. Paes, on the other hand, paired up with Jurgen Melzer to lose out in the second run. Many other seeds too lost in early stages. One exception was the ‘Polish power’ who suddenly seem to have realized that the season has started. They reached the quarters but unluckily retired in the last eight stage. After a bad start to the season, they have continuously fallen down the rankings and were seeded a mere 16th. It seems that the veterans have decided to hand over the baton to the youngsters.

Youngsters shine

This season has also seen some of the youngsters entering doubles events and notching up wins. The likes of Jerzy Janowicz , Grigor Dimitrov , Benoit Paire and others have tasted success on the doubles court apart from performing well in singles and in fact most of them are in the top 32 in singles. Jerzy, with Polish partner Tomasz Bednarek, reached the quarterfinals at Roland Garros apart from having good runs at other events with different partners including a runner-up finish at Indian Wells. Pablo Cuevas, a former French Open titlist reached the semifinals with his Argentinian partner. Cuevas is in fact on a comeback trail.

The other singles players and regulars like Fernando Verdasco(w/ David Marrero) and Marcel Granollers(w/ Marc Lopez) too have had good runs and both the Spanish teams reached the quarter-finals.

It is surely a good sign for doubles and they could act as crowd pullers for doubles matches and could probably gain a few more main court matches at the slams.

The rankings thread

With the exception of the top ranked Bryans who have at least 7000 points more than the third ranked player, all the others switched ranking. The worst falls were that of Max Mirnyi and Daniel Nestor who lost almost all of their ranking points. They are now ranked 23 and 21. The Indians, fortunately, did not lose much as they did not have to defend many points at the slam. Bhupathi fell a place to no.7 while Bopanna rose a spot to be ranked no.10 and Paes is now no.13, up from last week’s 15. This is probably the beginning of the transition in the doubles game into a new era where today’s youngsters will lead the way.

Scintillating Final:

The opponents for the Bryan brothers in the final were Michael Llodra and Nicolas Mahut from France. They were vying to become the first French duo to lift the title since 1984. The level of tennis was so good in the match that it was difficult to predict the result. Unfortunately, this was the only doubles match which was telecast in the entire tournament. Llodra’s fine game, that of a southpaw hitting backhands single handedly, was so beautiful to watch and it seemed to have inspired his partner Mahut, who reached his debut slam final, to come up with fine shots to answer the Bryans. But in the end, it was the top seeds who prevailed. One could see an emotional Mahut almost in tears on court after their loss.

A final note:

Here is hoping that Wimbledon sees all the top players competing well, youngsters shining and some beautiful tennis on display. And do not miss the serve and volleyers in singles play too!