Wimbledon’s doubles success earns a singular lack of support from fans

There were sighs of despair across Wimbledon on Monday as British singles players tumbled out of the draw. By Thursday, Arthur Fery was the last Brit standing, and fingers were being pointed during debate over how exactly the Lawn Tennis Association had failed so miserably at developing a crop of players able to compete at least through the first week.

Some were undone by injury (Jack Draper, Emma Raducanu), others by folly (Katie Boulter) and others made a good fist of it and are simply young players getting their reps in (Hannah Klugman, Mimi Xu). Yet what went ignored is the fact that at least one British man has been a Wimbledon champion every year for the past three years, and all four of those Brits are still in the competition. It is just that they were playing in the doubles, rather than singles.

The British duo of Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool won last year, while Henry Patten lifted the trophy with his Finnish partner Harri Heliövaara in 2024 and Neal Skupski won with Wesley Koolhof of the Netherlands the previous year. Doubles is facing somewhat of an existential crisis, typified by the lack of interest shown even by the patriotic Wimbledon crowd. Ben Rothenberg reported last week on his Substack Bounces that the ATP is exploring halving the sizes of double draws from 2028, with a concurrent reduction in prize money. The logic behind this proposal is that doubles does not draw enough interest to financially justify the expenditure it receives.

That lack of interest has been exacerbated by the fact that doubles has increasingly become the realm of specialists. Alexander Bublik was the highest-ranked singles seed participating in the men’s doubles this year, at 10. The next was Tomás Martín Etcheverry at 29. The women’s doubles was a little more populated by seeds, including Linda Nosková (nine), Marta Kostyuk (12) and Diana Shnaider (15). .

The US Open attempted to fix this last year by dispensing with the traditional mixed-doubles competition and giving teams direct entry based on their singles ranking. The idea was to encourage higher-ranked and more well-known stars to participate, with Emma Raducanu joining Carlos Alcaraz to play Jack Draper and Jessica Pegula in the first round. Mixed-doubles players were frustrated only one specialist doubles duo, Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori. was selected for the tournament. They won it, beating Iga Świątek and Casper Ruud in the final.

The tension between tradition and financial viability is not easy to resolve, but it is worth remembering the latter has regularly been used as a way to justify a lack of investment in women’s sport. “This is not a minor adjustment,” said a collective of doubles players in a statement. “It is a plan to end doubles as a viable profession, dressed up as a cost-saving measure.” Given it is the one area of tennis in which Brits are excelling, it would be prudent for the Wimbledon crowds to take the doubles players’ side on this one.

Photograph by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images