Over the past couple years, tennis pundits have been debating the place of doubles in professional tennis.There have been, and continue to be, changes made to the size of doubles draws, the length of doubles matches, additional promotional efforts for the game of doubles, etc.The reality still is that almost no top singles players choose to play doubles, especially in the men’s game.The primary reason is that the scheduling and extra court time impinge on their preparation for singles, which is what everyone -players, fans, sponsors and TV -really care about in the end.As a result, some talented tennis players you’ve never heard of, e.g. Polish players Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski qualified for the season-ending ATP Masters Cup doubles championships and earned over $430,000 as a team in 2006.The bottom line, these doubles specialists are earning too much money.Prize money should be a reflection of the popularity of the athletes and sport for fans, TV ratings, sponsors, etc.The large purses in doubles are simply a result of the overall growth of prize money in tennis.Doubles is a great game and many fans do enjoy playing and watching doubles, but very few fans, sponsors or TV executives would pay simply to see doubles matches.Therefore, I propose that doubles prize money be reduced, potentially 50%, to reflect the popularity of the game and doubles specialists.This leftover money should be redistributed to additional lower-tier tournaments around the world to promote the sport in more countries and support more struggling players on their way up the rankings.
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