'The decline began 15 years ago': Nicolas Mahut laments doubles' fading spotlight on the ATP Tour

Nicolas Mahut referred to the 'decline of doubles' that the category has suffered, being watched less and less, to the detriment of a central focus on singles. The Frenchman joined Pierre-Hugues Herbert in a recent interview for Eurosport France.

The historic 43-year-old player is a champion of 5 Grand Slam doubles titles, all alongside his usual partner Herbert, achieving the Career Grand Slam thanks to his titles in each of the majors. He has 37 doubles titles in his career between 2003 and 2023.

As one of the recurring names in doubles draws, Mahut is an authoritative voice to refer to the changes in the category in the last two decades, acknowledging that things have declined for specialists compared to the first part of his career. "The decline of doubles began about fifteen years ago," he stated.

"From the moment singles players gradually began to focus on a more individual career, to play less on the doubles circuit, mainly because of the prize money that exploded in singles, it lost a little of its appeal."

"Today, it's true that the view of doubles is not the same everywhere," added the former doubles world No. 1. "Unlike what can happen in Anglo-Saxon countries, in the United States or England or Australia, where there is a more important doubles culture, in France it is quite denigrated: it is often the player who has not succeeded in singles who goes to doubles."

"Moreover, on the ATP tour, doubles is not highlighted enough, even though people love the discipline. We see, for example, the importance that doubles has in the Davis Cup. So I am quite pessimistic about the future of doubles on the tour because the decisions that are made are not in favor of its development,” Nicolas Mahut concluded.