Yuki Bhambri criticises new mixed doubles format at US Open after soaring to career high in Dubai

Yuki Bhambri took a significant step in his upward trajectory as a doubles specialist in April last year when he found a stable and quality partner in 6’8” tall Frenchman Albano Olivetti. The duo made four finals on the ATP Tour and won two of them – Munich and Gstaad, both on clay.

However, Olivetti has been out since their first-round defeat at this year’s Australian Open due to a ruptured tendon. While he recovers, the 32-year-old Indian has continued to play with different players – depending largely on their availability – to collect crucial ranking points.

He played in Montpellier and Doha with Ivan Dodig while in Marseille, Matwe Middelkoop was his partner. Both Dodig and Middelkoop have a total of 38 doubles titles but amongst these three events, Bhambri’s best result was a semifinal finish in Qatar.

Last week, Bhambri experienced the biggest moment of his doubles career with someone who predominantly plays singles. The Indian, along with Australia’s Alexei Popyrin, stunned the top two doubles teams in the world on the way to win the Dubai Tennis Championships, an ATP 500 tournament. For Popyrin, ranked 27th in singles, it was his first-ever doubles title. Bhambri grabbed his fourth on the ATP Tour and so far, his biggest one. Consequently, he also made his Top 40 debut in the ATP Doubles Rankings on Monday.

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In an exclusive chat with Sportstar, Bhambri reflects on his title-winning run in Dubai and the challenge of finding new partners while he waits for Olivetti’s return.

Excerpts:

How did you form this partnership with Popyrin?

I’ve known him but I knew his coach Neville Godwin better. He’s worked with Hyeon Chung and Kevin Anderson, who I’ve also played against. Him and Cheung trained quite a lot together. 

I just took a chance by asking because I wasn’t getting into this event. If you go back to the entry list, we are the last acceptance into the draw. I knew he lives in Dubai and this is a home tournament for him. I was hoping that he might want to play a little bit of doubles. I’ve seen him on the tour and I’ve seen him do well at the Masters in doubles and he has played a few matches at the Grand Slams as well. So, he’s a good player. I just took a chance and he agreed. He graciously accepted to play and when you have great tennis players playing singles or doubles, the results speak for themselves.

You played four very close matches and in the final, you also had to save four championship points before winning the biggest title of your doubles career. How did you handle the emotions through this entire week?

The doubles matches come down, literally, to the last five minutes. This has happened so many times. You could be down and out or you could be on the other side of it. I’ve been in both positions where I’ve been cruising through – up by a set and a break, or match-point up and I’ve lost and I’ve been on the other side of it where I’ve been down match points and won. As you play more and as experience kicks in, you tend to realise that doubles really comes down to a few points and whether you’re winning or losing, you can never really take your foot off the gas. You have to be constantly in the present and try to win the next point because it always comes down to one or two points, especially with how the scoring works with no ad (advantage) in the games. The 10-point tiebreaker is a matter of two-three points and the whole match can turn. 

So, we just tried to play each match on its merit. In the first round, we were down 6-4, 5-4 and trying to save the match. We won the first set only in the semifinals and everywhere, we went to super tiebreaks. We were just really good in the final moments, especially in the tie breaks. This whole week, we didn’t give much of an opportunity to our opponents. This was just one of those finals where we had to hang in there and try to play the best tennis and everything clicked when it mattered.

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How difficult has it been for you to find a new partner for every tournament since Olivetti got injured? Has Olivetti told you when he’ll return

He (Olivetti) is trying to come back. Having been in a similar situation multiple times, I can tell that tendons do take time to heal and it doesn’t go according to what the doctor wants. Unfortunately, it has a mind of its own but he’s doing better. He is making progress week by week. So, he might be back for the clay season. We are regularly in touch.

It’s very difficult to keep finding partners, week in week out. Most of the people are set and you plan your schedule and who you’re playing with months in advance.

So, even when you’re playing matches, you have that in the back of your mind – what am I doing next week? I’ll still be playing with different people in different tournaments in March but hopefully, things will get settled once the clay season arrives.

What are your thoughts on the new mixed doubles format that the US Open is going to introduce this year? The event is scheduled during the same week as the singles qualifiers. It will have 16 teams – eight direct entries by their combined singles rankings and eight wildcards – competing over two days in shorter matches. A lot of doubles specialists, including Rohan Bopanna, have expressed their concern regarding the same.

US Open is very well aware of the pros and cons of it and I guess they took the business route. It wasn’t really thinking about who is benefitted from this. They thought about themselves and they thought of how it benefits them. This is the new angle they want to go with where it’s a glorified exhibition because they’ve really made sure that doubles players don’t play that event, allowing singles ranking (for direct entry). They don’t want that chance of having a doubles player playing there which is unfortunate. They’ve shown that they want to prioritise the business. From a player’s perspective, it is quite disappointing and especially for the Indians who’ve done incredibly well in mixed doubles in the past.

Was there any sort of communication between the US Open and players regarding this decision?

No, there was no communication between players and the ATP or the Grand Slams. The only communication that usually arises is the press releases which you see in the next couple of days once they have decided something.