All eyes are on Wimbledon, but in the background there is yet another war brewing and this time it involves the world\u2019s best doubles players.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As it has been reported by media outlets such as Spazio Tennis and Bounces, the ATP wants to overhall the current doubles structure with a goal of doing so in 2028. Their proposal, outlined in a meeting earlier this week, involves changing the prize money share between singles and doubles from 80-20 to 90-10. As a result, the draw sizes will be reduced to 16 teams at Masters 1000s and to eight teams at other events. This will also have an inevitable impact on the ranking system.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Calvin Betton is a renowned British doubles coach who trains Henry Patten, the world No.1 in men\u2019s doubles and two-time Grand Slam champion. He also coaches world No. 51 Luke Johnson, who lost his opening match at Wimbledon on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As doubles face an uncertain future in men\u2019s tennis, Betton spoke with Ubitennis about the current situation in an extraordinary interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n
UBITENNIS: So the rumoured proposals for doubles are less prize money, reduced draws and a small share of the prize money distribution. What is your reaction to this?<\/p>\n
BETTON: I think it\u2019s quite disgusting, to be honest, for numerous reasons. For starters,\u00a0We\u2019ve had no real indication as to what the motivation behind it is,\u00a0who exactly benefits from it, other than a few singles players who are already the richest in the world, which are the ones in the Top 70s or so. Therefore, I find it quite contemptuous. There are three major problems I have with it.<\/p>\n
One is that it\u2019s been brought about by the ATP, the Association of Tennis Professionals, who are supposed to represent tennis professionals, and it\u2019s not the Association of Singles Players.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re supposed to represent doubles players as well.\u00a0They\u2019re actively trying to take livelihoods away from a load of tennis players here. \u00a0I think that, in particular, it is disgusting.<\/p>\n
At the same time, we keep hearing that not enough people make a living out of tennis. Compared to all of the major sports, there are way fewer people who make a living out of tennis. If you take just the men\u2019s side of the game, there\u2019s only about, I\u2019m going to say, 150 singles players who make a living, but it\u2019s probably about 50 doubles players who make a living independently of anything like sponsorships. If we take this away, if this happens, we\u2019re not adding any people who make a living; we\u2019re taking away 50.<\/p>\n
Because\u00a0you\u2019re not creating any more single players who make a living, because this money would be going to the single players who already make a fortune.\u00a0And I find that, again, I find it just a bizarre thing to do.<\/p>\n
The public is still going to pay the same amount of money for tickets. Yesterday I was in Wimbledon,\u00a0on the outside courts from the third day, about 50% of the matches were doubles. Once you get into the fifth day, it\u2019s around 80% of the matches are doubles. The same in the Masters Series. If you lose these tennis matches on the court, people are still paying this money.<\/p>\n
I find it utterly contemptuous of the fans and the paying public that these people are going to charge them the same amount of money,\u00a0and offer them fewer products and expect them to be happy with it (if the changes happen).<\/p>\n
UBITENNIS: If this does happen, what will happen with the ranking system?<\/p>\n
BETTON: There just wouldn\u2019t be any doubles because there wouldn\u2019t be any tournaments for people to play. There will be probably be 20 doubles players at the most. Then nobody else would be able to break in because they are going to take the draws down to eight teams, and hardly anybody is going to get in. The preference is going to go to the singles ranking. There will be no doubles players, and I find that utterly bizarre.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They are saying things like the doubles players have got too good. So we need to get rid of them. The doubles specialists have got too good at what they do and that means the singles players are not winning enough doubles matches.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This happens in no other sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n
UBITENNIS: One argument is the doubles is too expensive and needs to be more cost-effective.<\/p>\n
BETTON: It\u2019s nonsense. They keep saying that doubles doesn\u2019t generate any revenue. There is no way of determining that. What I do know is that if you\u2019re going to sell grounds passes for tennis tournaments, after the first couple of days, most of the tennis is doubles on the outside courts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When they say doubles doesn\u2019t sell tickets. There are\u00a0two tennis players in the world that sell tickets\u00a0\u2013 Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. With all due respect to Ben Shelton, Alexander Zverev etc, no one buys tickets to watch those two. The public buys a ticket to watch tennis because they like tennis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you want to sell merchandise or food and drink, you have to have tennis on the outside courts. people on Center court are just there to watch tennis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
UBITENNIS: It is a tricky situation.<\/p>\n
BETTON: The\u00a0ATP has not only refused to promote doubles, they have prevented doubles promoting their own product.They won\u2019t let them use their own videos on Instagram because you can only use videos Tennis TV shows. About two years ago doubles players asked the ATP to run their own doubles Instgram account and the ATP flat out refused to let them do that. They even said they would pay for it themselves and have a professional come in to run their social media account. They didn\u2019t ask for any money.<\/p>\n
UBITENNIS: But why would they do this, it doesn\u2019t seem very logical?<\/p>\n
BETTON: They want to get rid of it. All of this stuff about it doesn\u2019t generate revenue is because they want to pay those singles players more money and that is what I find particular disgusting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We were told yesterday in one of the meetings that the 70th best tennis player in singles shouldn\u2019t be earning less than the top doubles players. I don\u2019t know why 70 is the reason but Jenson Brooksby is ranked 77th in the world. Going into this week, he has won six tennis matches and earned $550,000. Are we saying that this isn\u2019t enough for somebody who has won six tennis matches in six months? This is just an example.\u00a0<\/p>\n
UBITENNIS: What about the future in doubles at Grand Slams such as Wimbledon?<\/p>\n
BETTON: I think Grand Slam still wants doubles, they still want tennis on. I\u2019m not as worried but\u00a0you can\u2019t just have doubles at Grand Slams because there will be no doubles players if the ATP gets rid of it. They are not going to play just four tournaments a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When people say doubles is unattainable, in what respect is it unstaintainable? If everything carries on as the same, what doesn\u2019t sustain? To say something is unattainable it has to break down eventually.\u00a0<\/p>\n
UBITENNIS: So what happens now?<\/p>\n
BETTON: The doubles players are discussing this and\u00a0a statement will be coming out.\u00a0They don\u2019t want to make it singles players versus doubles players. They think both can co-exits, which they can as they co-exist at the moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I think\u00a0it probably has to go down a legal route with the ATP\u00a0because they keep trying this kind of thing. Nobody knows what the motivation is. Who does this benefit?\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s doesn\u2019t benefit the fans and that should be who we are looking at.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They want to take the prize money between singles and doubles from 80-20 to 90-10 with the extra 10 going towards the first round of the Masters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You\u2019re doing to get rid of the livelihood of a load of tennis players to give extra money to somebody who loses in the first round of a Masters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I think\u00a0there is an ulterior motive and some people just don\u2019t like doubles. There are certain singles players who are already multi-millionaires that are complaining that the slams aren\u2019t giving them enough money. They argue about revenue share and when you put it into a percentage they get some sympathy. But they never put it into an actual number.<\/p>\n
Editor\u2019s note: This interview outlines the views of Betton and others may have a different perspective. The ATP have increased their financial support to players in recent years through its \u2018One Vision\u2019 initiative, which has resulted in prize money increases across all levels of the Tour. In 2025, a record 88 players earned more than $1M in prize money. During this same season, the Masters 1000 profit-sharing model delivered $18.3 million to 186 players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All eyes are on Wimbledon, but in the background there is yet another war brewing and this time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":740046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-740045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}