"I think that they should make doubles draws smaller": Former doubles World No.1 Rennae Stubbs agrees 'to an extent' with Opelka's view surrounding doubles

Former doubles world No. 1 Rennae Stubbs commented on the criticisms made by Reilly Opelka about doubles tennis.

The Australian spoke on "The Rennae Stubbs tennis Podcast" about Opelka's stance on doubles. The American has stated that doubles should not be played since few people are interested in the category.

“"I've had conversations with Reilly. The thing with Reilly is, this is an economics thing for him, right? He feels like in certain tournaments, the tournament has to pay the double players to be there,” the Australian stated.

"They have to give them a place, pay for their hotels etc. Like, paying for their food. And he feels like it's taking the economics away from the singles players, particularly in smaller tournaments.”

"He has a point in some respects. You can say that doubles players don't sell tickets as well near to a lot of singles players. But those players that don't get a lot of publicity have to play against the higher singles ranking. So without them you can't have a tournament. All of that is true to certain extent.", she added.

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The tennis player who retired in 2011 won four Grand Slam titles in women's doubles and two in mixed doubles. She defended the idea of making changes that would incentivize singles players to participate in the doubles draw, which could generate more interest among fans.

"Wimbledon has now this year announced that it will not be best of five sets from the first round on in the men's doubles, which I think is a great idea. Because there was nothing worse than having to play after a men’s doubles match because they would go for fucking five hours at Wimbledon sometimes."

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"If they’re doing best for three across the board, I think it's a good idea and you might get singles players playing doubles now because that's one of the reasons why they don't play,” added the Australian.

“I would like to see maybe the draws smaller. Make the drawers a little bit smaller rather than a 32 doubles draw make it a 16 doubles draw, or even in some cases an eight doubles draw,"

"And, you know, you might get some really top players playing doubles a little bit more. Which we would love to see because most fans love watching doubles.” Stubbs concluded.

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