One of the big talking points of the last few weeks in the tennis world has been about doubles. Persistent doubles-troll Reilly Opelka has once again been slating doubles players and the whole doubles game. This has led to many people seemingly accepting doubles has a problem and discussing its value and its future. I’ve looked into the historic perfomance of singles and doubles players and also the current top 30 to see if the criticisms are valid. TL:DR Women – emphatically not. Men – maybe…!
Opelka seems to love rileing people up, and after more comments he was seen wearing a #WatchMoreDoubles t shirt. Was he a secret doubles fan?
Andy Roddick’s Served podcast also repeated this idea of doubles being in crisis and a failing product that was not worth the money
Much to my disappointment, Tennis Channel doubled down on this, with Coco Vandeweghe – a doubles grand slam champion by the way – agreeing that doubles was not working, and that it just ‘doesn’t sell’. That it just ‘can’t continue as is.’
This dissing of doubles has really annoyed me for one big reason.
It is a MEN’S doubles issue!
Much like everything in tennis though, when people say tennis or doubles, they mean men’s tennis and men’s doubles. In researching the doubles players, I was actually quite shocked at the difference in the makeup of the top ATP and top WTA doubles players. While I agree men’s doubles has some significant issues, I totally dispute that about women’s doubles – yet little distinction is made about the two in these discussions.
Oh yes, when we talk about tennis, we mean MEN’S TENNIS!! Grrrrr!
Anyway, let’s examine some facts and statistics.
The history of the link between singles and doubles success in women’s tennis is quite clear. Many women players excel in both! From the past, Billie Jean King, Margaret Court, Martina Navratilova were all outstanding doubles players as well as legends in singles.
More recently, Serena and Venus Williams and Martina Hingis were at the very top in both singles and doubles. In fact, doubles has often been a precursor for women players to win a singles slam. Ash Barty won the US Open doubles in 2018 before her singles victories. Current world number 1, Aryna Sabalenka won her first grand slam titles alongside Elise Mertens in doubles at the US Open in 2019 and Australian Open in 2021. Barbora Krejcikova won 2 women’s and 3 mixed doubles titles before breaking through in the 2021 Roland Garros singles – a tournament where she came back the next day to win the doubles title as well and would go on to win Wimbledon and the Olympic gold in doubles that summer.
While Djokovic, Nadal and Federer are considered the GOATs of the men’s game, they have zero doubles grand slams between them while Serena Williams has 14 women’s doubles and 2 mixed doubles titles. It is always hard to compare grand slam titles however, as the men playing best of 5 sets does make playing men’s doubles as well more difficult. Despite this, most of the legends of the women’s game have had doubles success too, while probably only John McEnroe comes to mind as a male player who was outstanding in both singles and doubles.
I did a bit of a dive into the statistics and looking at the doubles grand slams of the past 10 years, since 2015, fifteen of the women’s doubles grand slam champions had also been top 10 singles players:
Lucie Safarova, Martina Hingis, Caroline Garcia, Kristina Mladenovic, Ekaterina Makarova, Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Ash Barty, Coco Vandeweghe, Vera Zvonereva, Sam Stosur, Aryna Sabalenka, Barbora Krejcikova, Coco Gauff and Jelena Ostapenko. Altogether these women accounted for 36 of the 78 grand slam women’s doubles titles available so 46% of the major women’s doubles titles in the last 10 years have been won by someone who has also been a top 10 singles player at some point in their career.
In the same period, just TWO men achieved this: Fabio Fognini (Australian Open 2015) and Jack Sock (Wimbledon & US Open 2018) taking 3 of the 78 available men’s doubles titles which equates to 3.8% of the available major men’s doubles titles have been won by players who had also been top 10 singles players.
Of course, we once again have to take into consideration that men play best of 5 sets at the majors – and indeed it was best of 5 sets in doubles at one point too so it is a lot more rare to achieve slams in singles and doubles. The last male players to do so were Lleyton Hewitt back in 2001 and Yevgeny Kafelnikov in 1996 who completed this feat – a first major title in singles and in doubles at the same event, Roland Garros in 1996.
Women who have won slams in singles and doubles:
- Serena Williams – completed at the USO 1999
- Mary Pierce – completed at RG 2000
- Venus Williams – completed at Wimbledon 2000.
- Svetlana Kuznetsova – completed at the Aus Open 2005
- Kim Clijsters – completed at the USO 2005
- Sam Stosur – completed at the USO 2011.
- Ash Barty – completed at RG 2019
- Barbora Krejcikova – completed at RG 2021
- Aryna Sabalenka – completed at Aus Open 2023
- Jelena Ostapenko – completed at USO 2024
Serena and Venus Williams, Sam Stosur and Barbora Krejcikova also hold mixed doubles grand slam titles so the ‘triple’!
Singles Players Doubles Performances
Next, I decided to look more widely at the doubles record of the current top 30 WTA and ATP singles players to see how much they have played on tour and how successful they have been in doubles. I looked at their highest doubles rank, how many double titles they won and also their performance in grand slam and Olympic doubles.
WTA top 30 singles players.
- Five top 30 singles players have also been number 1 in doubles – Sabalenka, Gauff, Pegula, Krejcikova and Elise Mertens.
- Ten of the thirty have been in a grand slam doubles final, with five of the top 30 singles players being grand slam doubles champions.
- 16 of the 30 have won at least one doubles title on the WTA tour.
- Only 9 of the top 30 have NOT been a top 100 doubles player.
ATP Top 30 Singles Players
Compare and contrast to the male tennis players.
- Of the current ATP top 30, none have won or made a grand slam final in doubles.
- The highest rank any has achieved is Hubert Hurcacz who peaked at 30 in the world in doubles.
- 13 of the 30 have won a doubles title.
- There are the same number of Olympic medals, but 3 of the 4 are in mixed doubles
- You have to go down to Jordan Thompson, currently number 37 in singles to find a doubles grand slam champion.
Does this mean the male singles players are not good at doubles? That the men’s doubles players are more numerous and specialised? That they are, as Reilly Opelka says, making a comfortable amount of money playing doubles and have locked up the doubles tour?
Singles players can enter any tournament they like using their singles ranking, but few of the top 30 men choose to on a regular basis.
In the most recent Indian Wells/Miami 2025 tournaments, the top 30 men who entered the doubles were:
- Indian Wells – Zverev, Draper, Machac, Berrittini, Khachanov, Rublev, Fils, Humbert, Mpetshi-Perricard, Korda, Lehecka, Dimitrov (12)
- Miami – Cerundolo, Mpetshi-Perricard, Korda (3)
Indian Wells showed that sometimes the men WILL play doubles, but by Miami, it was back to just a few.
Meanwhile, with the top 30 women, we can see a greater willingness to play doubles. These are the entries in Indian Wells and Miami doubles.
- Indian Wells – Pegula, Paolini, Andreeva, Shnaider, Collins, Ostapenko, Haddad Maia, Alexandrova, Samsonova, Jabeur, Tauson, Kalinskaya, Mertens, Fernandez (14)
- Miami – Pegula, Paolini, Andreeva, Shnaider, Collins, Ostapenko, Alexandrova, Tauson, Kalinskaya, Fernandez, Mertens (11)
It is worth pointing out that doubles at Indian Wells is extremely well supported. The doubles matches are usually packed out while early singles rounds on the cavernous (and more expensive) centre court are often quite empty. Great crowds make for great atmospheres, leads to players really going for it and making matches exciting.
Focus on the Doubles Players
So maybe it isn’t about the very top singles players playing doubles, but the quality of those players winning in doubles. Are there just more sportsMEN so men’s doubles has less overlap with singles? it is more specialised? I looked at the singles perfomances and rankings of the top 30 ATP and WTA players. (Yes, I know these are changable!) And this is where I got a bit of a shock – at just how wide the gulf is in men’s tennis between the singles and doubles players, while the women have a lot more overlap. I used the data from the WTA and ATP websites, along with Wikipedia to check a few facts. I looked at the highest singles ranking they have achieved, singles titles won and their win/loss record as listed on the official website.
WTA Top 30 Doubles Players
- Of the top 30 WTA doubles players, there are only 13 who have never had a top 100 singles ranking.
- 12 of the top 30 doubles players have won singles titles,
- Two (Ostapenko and Gauff )have won a singles grand slam, while two (Paolini and Errani) have made singles grand slam finals.
- Only one – Hao-Ching Chan has less than 10 tour singles wins (although I’m a bit puzzled about the ranking for Fang-Hsien Wu if she got 19 wins..)
- As you can see in the table above, 24 of the WTA top 30 doubles players have more than 100 wins in singles too.
- 7 of the current top 30 doubles players have been in the top 10 for singles at some point.
- Just outside the top 30 are players who have been top 10 in singles and have played a lot of doubles: Pegula, Kenin, Krejcikova and Haddad Maia
ATP Top 30 Doubles Players
Looking at the ATP top 30 doubles players, it is a very different story.
- Of the top 30 male doubles players, 22 have never been in the top 100, indeed, ten of the top 30 have never won a singles match on the ATP tour, 5 have won just 1 match.
- That is HALF of the top 30 doubles players who have won no more than 1 ATP singles match in their whole career!
- Only 3 of the top 30 ATP doubles players have made it to 100 singles matches won.
- Four have won singles titles on the ATP tour
- Just one has been a top 20 player in singles.
The WTA top 30 doubles players clearly have far more singles achievements than the ATP.
Age and Nationality
One notable thing about the men’s doubles players is their age and nationality.
- The average age of the ATP top 30 doubles players is 34.7 compared to the average age of the WTA top 30 which is 30.0
- 26 of the ATP top 30 doubles players are over 30 – three over 40. That is 86.67% of the ATP doubles players being over 30
- 14 of the WTA top 30 doubles players are over 30. The oldest being Hsieh at 39 and the youngest Mirra Andreeva at 17. That is 46.67% of the WTA doubles players being over 30.
The lack of American men at the top of the doubles rankings might say a lot about men’s doubles profile. Of the 5 in the top 30, only Rajeev Ram probably has much name recognition. Of the women, Taylor Townsend and Coco Gauff are quite well known, as well as Danielle Collins and Jess Pegula playing doubles regularly (although are now out of the top 30. )
Conclusions
Most of the criticisms of doubles are a men’s doubles issue. Very few well-known names, a lot of older players, a lot of players who have never been serious singles players. Maybe Opelka is right, many of the top doubles guys simply weren’t good enough to be singles players? Some hardly seem to have tried competitively – I find that statistic of half of them having 0 or 1 win in singles on the tour quite eye-opening.
As far as the WTA doubles is concerned, there is a good mix of singles players and the doubles players nearly all have played singles too. There is a clear line through from doubles success to singles success and a significant overlap between the two.
It was also very noticeable that many WTA players seem to enjoy playing doubles, while many fewer ATP players seem to. Is it an ego thing? When you do get the top men playing doubles such as at the Olympics or Davis Cup or United Cup, it is obvious they are great tennis players. However, the tactics they might need to learn to play doubles consistently is time that is perhaps not considered worth it when you are vying for a grand slam singles title. Volleying especially, as it is much less crucial part of the singles game of many players these days.
Seeing doubles specialist win the Olympics mens doubles in Paris against singles players, it was notable how the ATP doubles guys have honed their craft. Carlos Alcaraz and Rafael Nadal were no match for doubles experts Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram. Mark Ebden and John Peers beat highly ranked singles players Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul.
While players complain they don’t get paid as much as they should, in the past players would play both singles and doubles to make some money. That isn’t a factor for the top players. They don’t NEED to play doubles, so most of the male players don’t. I suspect they also don’t want to lose to the older doubles pros!
For the top female players, most HAVE played doubles, but admittedly, few still do. It is less than a year since Coco Gauff won a grand slam doubles title, but now she has that title, she has pretty much stopped playing doubles. Similarly, Aryna Sabalenka doesn’t play doubles anymore – although she has said several times in interviews that she likes it. Jasmine Paolini, Mirra Andreeva, Beatrice Haddad Maia, Diana Shnaider and Jelena Ostapenko are probably the most regular doubles players of the top 20.
Of the men, Machac, Korda, Rublev play some doubles. Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul did really well to win a doubles bronze medal at the last Olympics and Fritz is a regular at the United Cup and Tie break 10s so seems to like the mixed.
A common theme is that once you are really pushing for the top 10, you need to focus on singles. Doubles matches can mean you miss out on recovery and training time. However, the evening before beating Elena Rybakina at Wimbledon in 2024, Barbora Krejcikova was on court for almost 3 hours losing a doubles match. Not great preparation but she did go on to win the tournament! (Although hasn’t played much doubles since then)
So is doubles broken? Full disclosure, while I love women’s doubles (along with women’s tennis much more) I must admit I am not a fan of men’s doubles and have probably only watched a couple of matches – mostly when it was Alcaraz and Nadal or Andy Murray and Dan Evans at the Olympics. There are not many names on that top 30 list that would make me want to go and watch a match. Men’s doubles – like men’s singles, but even more so – tends to be very serve dominated. There are not many big names and the demographic of being a fair bit older than WTA doubles players on average makes it maybe a harder sell.
I’m not sure what the answer is for men’s doubles, but please, stop whining about DOUBLES when the issues are really around men’s doubles! Women’s doubles is great!
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