"Four walkovers in two rounds": Opelka continues to berate doubles tennis and emphasizes need to scrap it

ATP
Saturday, 18 March 2023 at 03:30
opelka reilly rome2021
Reilly 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,"

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