The coach of reigning Wimbledon and Australian Open doubles champion Henry Patten backs the US Open’s reported plan to change the doubles start date but argues that the mixed doubles should no longer be regarded as a Grand Slam event.
Calvin Betton, who also coaches world No.51 doubles player Luke Johnson, is the latest figure in tennis to react to the United States Tennis Association’s (USTA) changes to this year’s tournament in Flushing Meadows. Under the proposed new schedule, it is expected that the men’s and women’s doubles events will be pushed back by two days and start on Friday during week one. Should this be the case, Britain’s top men’s doubles coach believes there are plenty of positives.
“I think that it could be potentially a positive move to start the men’s and women’s doubles on Friday in that you’re going to get more crowds watching. There’ll be more people in later in the week,” Betton told Ubitennis.
“The Grand Slams have a problem in that there’s not enough tennis beyond the first four days of the Slam because there’s not enough matches. Then they put all the matches on the big courts, where now we’re going to find a situation where I think the doubles will still get a lot of people watching by the grounds pass members.
“I hope that’s what they’re doing and they’re not intending on trying to reduce the doubles later on. If they do, then we’ve got a real problem.”
The controversial part of the USTA’s plans concerns the mixed doubles event which has been dramatically changed. For the first time in history, it will be a standalone event taking place during the same week as the singles qualifying events. The draw size has been slashed to 16 teams and it will be held over two days. Eight teams will gain entry based on their combined singles ranking and the other eight will receive wild card entries. Matches will be best-of-three short sets (to four games) with no ad-scoring and tiebreaks will take place if the score reaches 4-4. The winning team will earn a staggering $1M in prize money which is five times more than what last year’s Mixed Doubles champions won.
Lew Sherr, who is the USTA’s executive director and CEO, says the new format will help ‘put an even greater focus on the incredible talent‘ in tennis. The tournament is banking on attracting top players to the event which already have a broadcast agreement with ESPN in America to show the event live.
However, there has been fierce criticism from some doubles players who have raised concerns about earning opportunities being taken away from them. Australian Open and Wimbledon mixed doubles champion Jan Zielinski wrote on social media platform X “No communication with the players, no thought behind what it means to some people’s careers, no respect to the history and traditions. Sad to see.” Meanwhile reigning US Open mixed doubles champions Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori issued a lengthy statement in which they described the revamp as a ‘profound injustice that disrespects an entire category of players.’
Giving his view on the issue, Betton believes that the new event format should no longer be regarded as a Grand Slam and instead should be classed as an exhibition. He is also critical of the method used to select players for the tournament.
“I don’t really see how it can be taken seriously at all as a major event,” said Betton.
“It’s basically now a full-on exhibition for money.
“I don’t really agree with calling it a Grand Slam because 50% of the draw is going to be wildcards, and the other 50% is going to be singles players.
“For the life of me, I don’t understand why they didn’t go 50% of the draw is on doubles ranking and the other eight are wildcards, which they could just give all to singles players, which would make a whole lot more sense.
“Now you’re gonna have a situation where you’re barely going to have any doubles players playing in it at all. It’s taking earning possibilities away from them.”
As for looking to the future, Betton hopes the USTA will not make any radical changes to the single-sex doubles events. Earlier this month in a separate interview with Ubitennis, he voiced his views about how doubles players are currently being treated by both the Grand Slams and the ATP.
“My main concern with all this is that they keep everything the same with the men’s doubles and the women’s doubles, that the draw sizes stay the same,” he commented.
“The accommodation rules stay the same, each player still gets two rooms for themselves and the coach. The prize money stays the same and all those kinds of things and the draw makeup remain the same.
“And they’re not shoehorning in singles players all over the place.”
This year’s US Open is starting on a Sunday for the first time in its history and will take place over 15 days. The main draw will begin on August 24th.
