Mirnyi working towards the doubles message

London: Long considered the side-kick at any major tennis competition, the doubles game has all the good reasons to stand on its own.

“We have a great platform to promote doubles and that’s what we are doing. We hope that more and more people realize that it’s a great game and a great show. It’s very dynamic now in this new format, and it’s short and predictable for TV time. Hence, I see no reason for doubles to be a side show,” doubles specialist Max Mirnyi told Gulf News.

Mirnyi teamed up with Andy Ram to stun the second-seeded brotherly duo of Bob and Mike Bryan in straight sets 6-4, 6-4 in their opening match for Group B here on Monday.

This has been the first full year for the veteran pair together on the ATP World Tour, before Ram re-unites with longtime doubles partner Jonathan Erlich next season. During the course of the 2009 season, Mirnyi and Ram have reached three ATP Tour Masters 1000 finals – their best performance coming up in the US Open quarterfinals against Nenad Zimonjic and Daniel Nestor.

Mirnyi has qualified for the season finale six times in the past seven years and he has won the title once with Jonas Bjorkman in 2006 in Shanghai. Since those early days, the doubles competition has evolved with the ATP putting in the extra effort to make it interesting and exciting.

And one of the many aspects that have helped the doubles during its evolution is how people, no matter their age, have been able to identify with the sport. “For many years, there’s been a separate site for singles and doubles. Now it being in the same venue, it certainly benefits doubles tremendously. The crowds that we had, maybe 7,000 to 8,000 watching a doubles match is very special. Hopefully, some of those 8,000 are going to come out and try to do some of those things we did on the doubles court, because they are not going to be able to do what Roger [Federer] does on the singles cpurt,” Mirnyi stated.

“Basically, it’s quite simple. Why is golf so popular? Because so many people can relate to Tiger Woods even when they’re 65 years old. It’s the same scenario for tennis: there’s 90% of the people that want to play tennis are only able to play doubles. It’s impossible to ask of any club player to come out there and try to go side to side and play a singles match,” Mirnyi said.

“You go to any clubs, 90% of the time, you will see women’s leagues, seniors, juniors, 40s and 50s are playing doubles. And that’s what we are trying to bring the message across,” the Belarussian stated.