Bjorkman Says Leave Doubles Alone, but Change ATP

Posted on August 30, 2005

By Richard Vach, Tennis-X Senior Writer

By virtue of being part of the No. 1-ranked doubles team on the ATP this year, you'd think Swedish veteran Jonas Bjorkman would get a little more attention from ATP officials.

"(The players) have been having quite a lot of meetings," Bjorkman told Tennis-X of his efforts with the Bryan brothers and other doubles players to get the ATP to overturn the decision to apply a short-scoring system to doubles matches after the US Open.

"We need to be a little more like a (player's) union."

Bjorkman and Max "The Beast" Mirnyi currently top the ATP Doubles Race standings ahead of Americans Bob and Mike Bryan, two teams that go the extra yard in attempting to promote doubles, and tennis in general. What frustrates the players is that this goes on at the same time the ATP and tournament directors work to cut the size of doubles draws, and replace the doubles specialists in the doubles draws with singles players who don't play doubles.

The ATP says the changes are to better the sport, to make doubles more attractive to fans. The players say that is just spin, and the changes are so tournament directors can save money -- fewer hotel rooms, meals and other perks to pay for with were fewer no-name doubles players in their events.

The ATP made the doubles scoring change after announcing a poll of fans, players, tournaments and the media showed support for a change. But the poll questions were vague, and the ATP still refuses to release the results to the media.

Greeted by a media, fan and player backlash (tournament directors, or course, are happy), the proposed changes have not been popular, to say the least. Top singles players such as Andy Roddick said the changes wouldn't entice him to play any more doubles.

With the spate of injuries in the modern game, players are looking to play less tennis, not more.

The ATP says the scoring changes will now see tiebreaks at 5-5 in the set instead of at 6-all, and there will be a "sudden death" point played at deuce where the next point wins the game, otherwise known as no-ad scoring.

Originally the scoring changes were to run for an unsubstantiated amount of time after the US Open, but the latest ATP release says the scoring changes will be tested at six post-US Open ATP tournaments: Beijing, Bucharest, Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, Palermo and Metz.

"In addition to the new scoring format, the ATP to make doubles more exciting to watch is introducing other changes," says a grammatically-challenged ATP statement. "More doubles matches will be featured on show courts; promotional initiatives are being developed; and beginning 2006, players will use the better of their singles or doubles ranking to enter doubles draws. Many of the changes were recommended by the ATP's Research & Development Doubles Project Team, which evaluated data from surveys from four target groups: fans, players, media and tournaments."

ESPN analyst Mary Carillo, speaking to reporter Paul Fein on the doubles scoring changes, summed up the opinion of the majority of tennis media.

"As for the ATP doubles debacle, what a colossal error those knuckleheads have made this time," Carillo said. "I almost couldn't believe the press release. I thought it had to be a joke. Then I approached both my bosses at ESPN and NBC during Wimbledon, and I asked them if the new format for doubles would get doubles more air time. Both network execs laughed at the notion. The ATP has dropped the ball so many times so many ways, but this could be the stupidest "innovation" of all."

Bjorkman says he is ready to end the experiment, and any talk of changing the tennis scoring in doubles. The International Tennis Federation (ITF), which runs the slams, said no to the ATP's request for the slams to also adopt the changes. Now Bjorkman is ready to get on to the business of correctly promoting doubles and doubles players.

"(The ATP) goes in and say 'We're going to change the rules of tennis,'" Bjorkman said. "The ITF is not going to change it...We need to do more research. And we just need to talk positive about the doubles."

The ATP was the player's union up until 1990 when it took over the governing of the men's tour, and now the players are essentially without a union, hoping the ATP acts in the player's best interest as it acts as a middleman between the tournament directors and players -- both essentially independent bodies from the tour.

Players and tournament directors alike have council representatives on the ATP Board, where the player representatives in June folded their votes, helping the doubles changes through and infuriating doubles specialists such as the recently-retired Todd Woodbridge.

"I'm disappointed with our players' council," Woodbridge said after the decision. "They all should resign, because they've made changes without asking what the rest of the tennis world thinks. They've made a scoring system that doesn't exist. It's not an approved system by the International Tennis Federation. Perhaps with that in mind, I've timed my (retirement) decision pretty well."

Bjorkman says that beyond the players' council voting debacle, the system itself has broken down and the players are starting to give up.

"We used to have strong representatives like Todd Martin on the player council," Bjorkman said. "But now a lot of the players are stepping back, they say (the ATP Council/Board system) is not working anymore."

The ATP had experimented with another doubles scoring change, a third-set tiebreak instead of playing a third set, but Bjorkman says any scoring changes will poison the integrity of the game, lead to further erosion down the line, and turn tennis into more of a game of chance than a sport of skill or endurance.

"Todd (Woodbridge) and I won Monte Carlo during that period," said Bjorkman of the third-set tiebreak experiment. "Afterwards we said that we didn't feel like we deserved it, we weren't playing well and we weren't the best team that week. But tiebreakers are like a coin flip and we ended up winning."

Another problem with the triumvirate relationship between the players, ATP and tournament directors is communication -- or lack of. Bjorkman says players take their problems to the ATP, and they in turn sometimes don't make it to the tournament directors.

"What we've been talking with the ATP hasn't reached the tournament directors," Bjorkman said. "I spoke to (Cincinnati Tournament Director) Bruce Flory and he hadn't heard of some of the things."

Bjorkman says from simple promotions like putting doubles (not just singles) players pictures and bios in tournament programs to holding pro-ams with fans and skill-type exhibitions such as those at the Arthur Ashe Kid's Day, fans can become more involved via doubles players.

"The tournament directors have a lot of ideas, and the players have a lot of ideas," Bjorkman said. "Unfortunately not every tournament director is willing to listen...and we probably don't have the right people in position (at the ATP). We need some fresh people in there, some new business people in there."

One thing that excites Bjorkman is the recent appointment of former Disney exec Etienne de Villiers as ATP Chairman. de Villiers will provide some guidance to the organization while spearheading the search for a new CEO, with Mark Miles retiring on Sept. 1.

"I am excited about the new guy de Villiers," Bjorkman said. "We need a new direction...we are worldwide very well known. It shouldn't be so difficult."