Doubles Without Troubles

by Pete Bodo

Although the match is still live as I write this, France put powerful Russia into a deep, dark hole yesterday as Virginie Razzano stunned Maria Sharapova 6-3, 6-4, and Alize Cornet shocked Svetlana Kuznetsova 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. This means that if the Russians have anything to say about the outcome, it will be a long, long day in Moscow, with the tie decided (they hope) in the third and final match of the day, the doubles.

It's unlikely that any of the other three ties of the World Group quarterfinals will go the distance; the Italians have already dismissed Australia (in Hobart) and the Czechs, my pick to go all the way this  year, knocked out the Slovaks earlier today. We could have three clean sweeps recorded within a few hours, and there's a chance that the losing teams in all four ties will have accounted for just one "live" win—Jamila Groth's triumph over Francesca Schiavone in the first match of the Italy vs. Australia tie.

Well, some grumbling about the one-sided ties will be inevitable, but none of it can be based on the streamlined, two-day format. And compressing the tie into two days (as opposed to the three of a typical Davis Cup tie) certainly eliminates a lot of the tedium you invite when the third day of play is meaningless (that is, when a doubles win secures a sweep). How would you feel, having bought an expensive ticket to a Davis Cup Sunday, having to watch two meaningless singles matches oftentimes featuring substitute players?

When the ITF adopted this new, two-day format for Fed Cup, I thought it was a joke. It seemed an insult to doubles as well as to the Davis/Fed Cup notion. One of the positive features of Davis Cup is that the doubles matters; it's the critical "swing" match. You can't win a tie before the doubles is played, and the Saturday events can often turn the course of a tie by 180 degrees. Just as important, from a psychological angle, is that doubles gets its very own day. That's an enormous departure from the tradition that has kept doubles in every format and articulation pinned as a dessert course you may or may not want to indulge in. Or, if you want to put it more plainly. . . a sideshow.

Besides, and let's be honest about this, isn't it be just plain weird to have a Fed or Davis Cup tie actually decided by a doubles match, the way it now is for the women? Over the past few years, though, I've gotten accustomed to the fifth and decisive doubles rubber as a big as well as unique feature of Fed Cup.

I looked back over the past three years and figured out that eight of the 21 World Group ties (including finals) were decided 3-2; more important, six of those eight were "live," the doubles determining which team won. That's a pretty strong number,especially when you consider the demand the doubles can place on a player who's looking at playing her third match in two days (including two singles).

Usually, at least one of your singles players has to bounce back to play doubles after her singles match. This doesn't always seem quite fair, but let's not forget that players routinely have to play two matches at regular tournaments, including Grand Slams.

The most surprising thing about those six tie-deciding doubles matches is that, as a group, they haven't especially dramatic or competitive. We've had just one three-setter that decided a tie between 2008 and 2010 (Liesel Huber and Bethanie Mattek-Sands over Iveta Benesova and Kveta Peschke in the 2009 semifinals), and the Americans won that 6-1 in the third. Note that the U.S. had Huber, a doubles specialist, on hand to help singles player Mattek-Sands.

All in all, the fifth-match doubles has been a successful idea. If it diminishes the doubles game by becoming redundant on too many occasions, it also has the power to decide a tie in the way it does not in Davis Cup. And there's something nice about a team competition being decided by a team enterprise. The one criticism that doesn't hold much water, even though I once bought into it, is that no Davis or Fed Cup tie ought to come down to the doubles.

I've come around to the opposite point of view. Maybe a doubles match decided a by team competition is the most appropriate approach. Singles glory is individual glory, and the players spend almost their entire time on court pursuing it. Leave it to a team to close the deal at a team event.