Tennis Briefing: Machac and Siniakovas doubles, Washington Open winners

Welcome back to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where The Athletics will tell the stories behind the stories of the past week on the track.

This week, the Paris 2024 Olympic tennis tournaments handed out their medals as the hard-court season began in earnest. There were fruitful moments for tennis doubles, a mixed doubles affair, and two results that revealed the fine line between prestige and points.

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Have these Olympics shown that tennis is a better path to doubles?

Doubles, especially among men, has increasingly become a neglected stepchild of singles in recent years.

And that's a pretty nasty comment to make about stepchildren, considering how the sports ruling class schedules doubles matches after the singles show is over late at night, or before anyone shows up in the morning. The pay is terrible.

Most of the world’s best players, particularly the males, rarely compete, despite recent additional incentives to encourage participation, such as allowing individual players to use their ranking in the discipline as an entry ticket.

But every four years the Olympics come around, and singles, doubles and mixed doubles all offer the same reward: one of those shiny Olympic medals. Suddenly the best athletes are interested, hence the stylish partnership between Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz.

What this doubles tournament shows, especially to people who watch the Olympics first, tennis second, and probably don't watch doubles all that often, is how different doubles is from singles.

Doubles specialists repeatedly made a mess of the singles star players.

Australia's Matthew Ebden, who retired from singles two years ago and won the gold medal for Australia with John Peers, could barely stay on court with Novak Djokovic in the opening round when he was forced in as a last-minute substitute. He gave quite a clinic in the doubles tournament.

And which team did Ebden and Peers play against in the final?

That would be Rajeev Ram and Austin Krajicek of the United States, two of the world's best doubles players, who would probably rather wash their hair with water from the Seine than play a singles match. Much of Paris was atwitter every time Nadalcaraz took the court, and Ram and Krajicek licked their lips when they saw that the tie gave them their quarterfinal opponents.

Ram and Krajicek maneuvered Nadal and Alcaraz using the geometry of the doubles court (Patricia de Melo Moreira/AFP via Getty Images)

Ram said it was because the match would be an opportunity. It was also because he knew he and Krajicek could keep Nadal and Alcaraz off balance all night, which they did. They beat the Spaniards 6-2, 6-4.

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Ebden and Peers, two guys Ram and Krajicek often played against in major tournaments, were the biggest problem.

“There are two guys on the other side of the net who play doubles for a living and do it at a super high level. It can’t get any harder than that,” Ram said, a silver medal around his neck.

That would definitely be a challenge, more than the singles players, who are undoubtedly great players, but they don't play doubles all the time. The level is just a little bit different.

The best performing singles players were Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul, good friends and junior Grand Slam singles final opponents, who have known each other since they were 14 years old and won a bronze medal. They were fortunate to face many singles players, including Felix Auger-Aliassime and Milos Raonic from Canada, Dan Evans and Andy Murray from Great Britain and Tomas Machac from the Czech Republic, who was partnered with Adam Pavlasek.

Fritz and Paul, who lost in the semi-finals to Ebden and Peers, practiced doubles for 30 minutes before the tournament and basically did it by chance. They had a little help, with Bob and Mike Bryan, just about the best doubles team ever as coaches.

They said the Bryans helped them play the best doubles matches of their lives, but doubles specialists have their own problems, making the match essentially a game of “keeping away,” trying to keep the ball away from the player at the net.

They're very good at making you guess where they're going, Fritz said. If you don't go to the right spot, they punish you with the volleys.

“This is the first time I've played doubles with a strategy,” Paul admitted.

Bob Byan, a datahead, provided Fritz and Paul with analysis of their opponents' service patterns and tendencies, giving them advice on how to move and where to hit the ball.

Whether they listened to it is another story, Bryan said.

Funny things happen out there. It's definitely not how Mike and I played.

Matt Futterman

How did Machac and Siniakova go for gold?

Make way for Carlos and Novak. The tennis story that captured the imagination of the Olympics was that of Czech mixed doubles duo Katerina Siniakova and Tomas Machac, who won gold against Zhang Zhizhen and Wang Xinyu of China.

Siniakova and Machac have emerged as the sport’s it-couple in recent years. Sure, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Paula Badosa have their Tsitsidosa Instagram accounts, but this is one of those if you know it. Siniakova and Machac have a certain elegance and both play with style.

Siniakova also wins a lot, especially in doubles, regardless of who she partners. She and Coco Gauff won the French Open this year. She and Taylor Townsend won Wimbledon this year. She and Barbora Krejcikova, the Wimbledon singles champion, have won seven Grand Slam titles together, as well as Olympic gold at the Tokyo Games.

Gauff and Siniakova defeated Italy's Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani in Paris in June (Tim Goode/Getty Images)

Siniakova and Machac added another gold medal to their list of achievements in Paris, but much of the talk is about the status of their relationship.

Here’s the tea: Just before the Olympics, Siniakova announced that she and Machac had split. But the hugs and kisses after each victory, which became increasingly affectionate, suggested otherwise. In an interview after an early round, they certainly did little to suggest that they weren’t still, you know, together, no matter what the internet said.

Who is the boss in the relationship, it was asked? Me, all the time, Siniakova said.

What is it like working together? The chemistry is good, Machac insisted. Does Siniakova speak differently to him than to her other doubles partners?

He says I put more pressure on him, she said.

“I don't mind this pressure,” he quickly added.

They stayed in the Olympic Village, but in separate bedrooms. We are professionals, Machac said. At least for this week. They ate together and then said good night,

Yes, always good night, and good morning too, said Machac. You can't forget good morning.

Single or double?

Matt Futterman

A story about two players?

During the Olympic Games in Paris, Dan Evans was involved in two of the most emotional and joyous matches of his career.

Playing doubles with Andy Murray, who was playing in his final tournament, Evans won twice and saved several match points. After both victories, the pair celebrated with a rawness that was genuinely moving. There was no place on earth they would rather have been in those moments.

For Evans, it all came at a steep price. Playing in the Olympics meant missing the Citi Open in Washington, D.C., and giving up the 500 ranking points he had accumulated by winning the event last year. How many points he would have defended is anyone’s guess, but as a result of losing 500, Evans woke up Monday morning with a 118-spot drop in his ranking, from No. 58 to No. 176. That means no more automatic entry into Grand Slams and the prospect of playing in Challenger tournaments instead of full ATP Tour events.

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It’s easy to say that Evans wouldn’t trade those unforgettable moments he had with Murray in Paris for ranking points, but it could have a huge impact on his career. Evans, 34, said at Wimbledon that he would retire from tennis if he had to ask for wildcards for the biggest events. That’s exactly what he’ll have to do now.

On the other hand, Spain’s Paula Badosa decided to skip the Olympics to protect her last remaining major tournament eligibility under her special injury ranking for the US Open, and she’s probably feeling pretty good about that decision. She won the Citi Open on Sunday by beating Marie Bouzkova in the final for her first title in over two years, moving up 22 spots to No. 40 in the rankings. She’s now close to the world’s top 32, meaning she’s qualified for the Grand Slams.

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Earlier this week she said skipping Paris had been a wise decision given the injuries she had and the challenge of switching from grass to clay and then back to hard courts.

Badosa battled through three sets to secure the trophy (Allison Robbert/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

While the argument goes that prestige should be enough to convince players to sacrifice ranking points and dollars for the chance to compete for their country, that is easy to say for those with sufficient prestige.

For the majority of players who need all the money and ranking points they can get, forgoing even a few hundred points for the sake of the Olympic experience is not an easy decision. Add to that the risk of an injury during the Games derailing future tournaments, which is why several high-ranked players have withdrawn from the likes of Aryna Sabalenka and Ons Jabeur, and it’s easy to think that moments like Evans’ shouldn’t come at such a high price.

Charlie Eccleshare

Recommended reading:

The winners of the week

Paris 2024 Olympic Games

ATP value:

Sebastian Korda extended Flavio Cobolli 4-6, 6-2, 6-0 to win the Citi Open (500) in Washington, DC. It is the first ATP title at the 500 level for the American and his second ATP title of his career.

WTA class:

Paula Badosa extended Marie Bouzkova 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 to win the Citi Open (500) in Washington, DC. It is the second WTA title at the 500 level for the Spaniards.

On the way up / On the way to the top

Paula Badosa rises 22 places, from 62nd to 40th, after winning the Citi Open in Washington.
Joao Fonseca climbs into the top 200, rising 48 spots from 214 to 166 after winning his first Challenger Tour title in Lexington, Kentucky.
Emma Raducanu returns to the top 70 after rising 20 spots, from 89th to 69th.