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Opelka once again criticized doubles tennis and expressed his opinion that they
should be eliminated from the tour after some walkovers in the BNP Paribas Open
Indian Wells.
This is not
the first time the American has criticized doubles tennis. He had previously
talked about the lack of interest from fans in that category and also commented
that it is of a lower level than singles.
Opelka
spoke through his social media after some walkovers occurred in the first and
second rounds of Indian Wells. First, it was Cameron Norrie who claimed fatigue
after his match against Taro Daniel and preferred to withdraw from doubles
(paired with Lucas Miedler) to prioritize his singles matches. This allowed
Felix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov to advance without playing.
The same
situation occurred with the Argentines Diego Schwartzmann and Francisco
Cerundolo, who decided to withdraw before their match with Frances Tiafoe and
Stan Wawrinka. This same pair withdrew in the next round against doubles
specialists Neal Skupski and Wesley Koolhof. Dimitrov and Hurckaz did the same
before challenging Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden.
After this,
there were journalists who responded to the 25-year-old tennis player, one of
them mentioning the large number of people who gathered to watch Coco Gauff and
Jessica Pegula play. For Opelka, this shows that attention to doubles is when
well-ranked singles players are participating:
"Journalists using top ranked singles players as examples of people watching doubles further proves my point," added Opelka.
The American was
asked if he would change an ATP rule, and he did not hesitate to mention that
doubles should be eliminated.: "Get rid of doubles, only time people watch
are when its singles players or the bry bros,"