Doubles Only Tennis Podcast

Harri Heliovaara & Henry Patten Interview: On Winning Majors, Their Partnership, & The State of ATP Doubles

• Will Boucek • Episode 228

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Harri Heliovaara and Henry Patten are the #1 doubles team on the ATP tour, having captured two of the last three major doubles titles including Wimbledon 2024 and Australian Open 2025. I spoke with them in Indian Wells a few days before the start of the BNP Paribas Open.

In this conversation, we discuss their practice routines, their partnership, the state of ATP doubles, and more.

  • Detailed breakdown of their practice sessions, including specific drills like "volleyball" for serve and return practice
  • Strategic approach to facing teams with singles specialists like their first-round match against Melo and Zverev
  • Comparison between their Wimbledon and Australian Open victories and the different emotional experiences
  • Insights into Henry's relationship with his coach, Calvin Betton, who was also on the podcast recently (below)
  • Perspective on the current state of professional doubles and how to increase its popularity among fans
  • Discussion of mixed doubles format changes at the US Open and implications for the sport

Watch Harri and Henry play doubles through the rest of the season on Tennis Channel Plus and Tennis TV.

From this episode:

Learn more about Harri & follow:

Learn more about Henry & follow:

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Speaker 1

You're about to hear my conversation from last week at Indian Wells. With the number one doubles team on the ATP Tour, harry Haleo Vara and Henry Patton are ranked fourth and third respectfully, in the individual doubles rankings and then they are number one in the race to the year-end finals. So far this year, they won Wimbledon last year in 2024. They won the Australian Open earlier this year in 2025. So they have two of the last three major doubles titles and they're obviously playing at a super high level. So before I get to the conversation, I just got back from Indian Wells last night. I'm kind of catching up on all of these podcasts. It was a great week and a half there at Indian Wells. I had some really good conversations with some high-level executives, coaches, players, different people in the tennis profession, in the tennis industry, and really centered around the kind of doubles conversation that's been going on lately about how to make it more popular, what changes need to be happening, different things like that, and you're going to hear a lot of that in this conversation as well as some of the other podcasts over the next week or two.

Speaker 1

But before you hear that, a couple of quick updates from the Tennis Tribe side. So we just went live with our new website. The design right now is very similar to the old website, but we migrated a lot of different things on the back end, which took a lot of time and was a big investment, and slowly we're going to be making adjustments on the front end. So we're going to move the membership away from the Teachable platform and it's going to be integrated into the website. So there will be a little login button and a logout button at the top right. We're going to make it really easy to navigate, easy to find the content you're looking for. If you want to work on your return strategy and you're an ad court returner, then you'll be able to easily find the lessons on that, for example. So it's going to be a big, big upgrade. I'm hoping to have most of the front end changes done by the end of April and be totally migrated away from Teachable.

Website Updates and Member Webinar

Speaker 1

As far as the membership is concerned, for the member-only webinar this month, we're going to be doing it on March 25th, so that's a Tuesday, it's about a week and a half from now. It's going to be at 1 pm Central Time, 2 pm Eastern, and it's going to be on the Ad Court. So if you missed the February webinar, I talked about the Deuce Court, so it's a great one to watch if you return from the Deuce Court or if you struggle holding your serve from the Deuce Court. And then in March in a couple of weeks we're going to be talking about the Ad Court, so it's going to be really good for Ad Court returners. If you're a recreational member, you're going to get access to the February webinar through the end of March and then on March 25th we'll have the ad court webinar and you'll have access to that through the end of April. Of course, club level members get access for the lifetime of your membership, so keep an eye out for that. I'll link in the show notes to the membership if you're not currently a member and want to check that out. I'm releasing new premium video lessons every single week, alongside one webinar every month, and then you also get exclusive discounts from Tennis Warehouse ADV Tennis Bags, ria Eyewear for sunglasses lots of my favorite tennis products. You get some really good discounts inside the membership as well, so there's a lot of content there, as well as some strategy courses. So you can check that out in the show notes.

Heliovaara and Patten's Tournament Prep

Speaker 1

So let's dive into this episode. So Harry Heliovarra, number four in the world, henry Patton, number three in the world. I sat down with them before they started the tournament at Indian Wells, so the tournament was shifted back to a Sunday start this year, which was the middle weekend, and I talked with them about practice, what their practice looked like for the few days leading up to the tournament. We get into some specifics that you can learn from as a club level player as well. We also talk about their first round matchups. They were playing Marcelo Melo and Alexander Zverev. They went on to win that match and they talked about how they handle playing double specialists versus singles players and, in this case, a combination of the two, with Zverev being such a good singles players and, in this case, a combination of the two, with Zverev being such a good singles player. We also talked about whether they like the Sunday start or not, and then we discussed their Australian Open run as well. They compared it to the Wimbledon run and that kind of led us into a transition towards kind of the doubles conversation on a bigger scale as of late.

Speaker 1

So we talked about what it is going to take to make pro doubles more popular. We compare pro doubles on the men's side to the women's side. A lot of people say that the WTA doubles is in a better spot than the ATP. So Henry has a bit of a response to that. And then we talk about how we can potentially make the next Harry Heliovar, the next Henry Patton, become tennis stars. So you're going to get a lot out of this. You're going to understand a lot more about these two individuals, as well as their partnership. We talk about team chemistry a lot in this conversation too, so I think this is going to be a fun one for you to get to know two of the top five doubles players in the world and the number one team in the world. So, without further delay, enjoy this interview with Harry Heliovara and Henry Patton. Hey everybody, welcome to the show. Today we have the number one doubles team in the world on Harry Heliovara and Henry Patton. Hey everybody, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2

Today we have the number one doubles team in the world on Harry Hillyabara and Henry Patton. Welcome guys. Thank you very much. Are we the number?

Speaker 3

one. We are the number one in the race. You're number one in the race In the race.

Speaker 2

Okay, yeah, we'll take that. I think that's the best way to judge it.

Speaker 1

Probably, yeah, I agree, I agree yeah, so I was looking at the rankings earlier. It looks like Harry year 4 and Henry year 3. Harry, how do you catch up to your doubles partner here?

Speaker 3

Well, that's actually quite easy after Miami. I will go ahead of him if we just play together the next couple of weeks, because I mean it's quite after Miami. We will have the same points, but he has played two more tournaments than me last summer. So he will stay behind me for the next three months after Miami, but hopefully by Wimbledon. Then we are tied for number one.

Speaker 1

Okay, y'all are both doing pretty well Career highs, I believe, for both of you right now. So we're here in indian wells. Uh, you have a sunday start, which is a little unusual this year. Um, henry, you said this was your first time here. What has the last few days been like? Talk about practice when you do have a start that's a couple days away, um, from the time that you get here.

Speaker 2

Uh, yeah, so I'm trying to think when I arrived here I guess I arrived here sort of wednesday afternoon, um, kind of settled in, and then, yeah, we've been practicing two to three hours a day, I would say most days, um, so nothing too crazy, um, and yeah, first couple days are always kind of getting used to the conditions. Um, the courts are pretty slow here and it's very, very dry. Uh, the balls are. I think they only use these balls at this event. So, uh, that's that's a unique factor to what ball is it? It's the pen ball. Okay, I don't know which model of pen ball it is, but yeah, I think it's pretty much only this tournament in the year that uses it. So, yeah, definitely kind of an adjustment phase. And now we're moving into some more points play, um, um, and yeah, sort of live drills, um, so yeah, that's it. We've played golf the last couple days. I don't know if that that's gonna be good or bad for our tennis preparation, but we've really enjoyed it. Um, and yeah, we're trying to have a good time here.

Practice Strategy and Doubles Drills

Speaker 1

You talked about practice or before we started recording, you talked about practice earlier today and one of the things I've been noticing just walking around the practice courts is a lot of the doubles. Players will either just have a practice with their partner or maybe even just their coach working on specifics, and then a lot of times y'all are out there playing like practice sets, or two up, two back or something like that. Talk about, uh, the difference between those two, how you kind of manage each one and then how you decide. You know which one are you going to do on a specific day, or is it better to do one before the other?

Speaker 2

um, yeah, so I mean, the reason we we would do sort of a session just by ourselves, which is what we did this morning is you just are able to get more reps in, basically with whatever you want to do. Um, obviously, you're also able to do whatever you want to do. You don't have to take the other pair into consideration when you're deciding what drills to do. So, um, yeah, this morning we focused quite heavily on serve return, played some kind of live points between ourselves. We wanted to work on that, which, if there was another pair on the court, we might not have been able to do. You know, um, and then, yeah, we'll play points this afternoon.

Speaker 2

It's tough to replicate truly replicate points play in drills, so I think it's always important to to, yeah, play play a set as well. Um, we usually prefer doing the session by ourselves first. Uh also acts as kind of a warm-up and a sharpener before we then go into play points, which is more realistic in terms of what we do on a match day. So, um, yeah, that's how we like to do it, but I'm sure lots of people have have different, different preferences what is the points against each other?

Speaker 1

look like I imagine you're playing like shadow doubles where it's like half court. Talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so I mean the main way we do that is a game that we call volleyball, which is pretty simple really. You have one player serving, one player returning and you're playing points and the server decides where the returner is going to hit their return and then you play out points, sort of half-court. From that there's a variation of the game. So we either play first and second serve, where only the server wins the point, and if you win the point you keep serving. Obviously, if the returner wins the point, then they start serving and you score it like that. And then we play one with just second serve, which is the other way around, so the returner wins the point and if you're the server and you win the point, then you start returning. So yeah, we play those games a lot. Serve and return is the most important shots in doubles. So we spend a lot of our practice working on those things.

Speaker 1

Yeah, the most important shots and doubles. So we spend a lot of our practice working on those things. Yeah, it's definitely something I've noticed, like when I'm at home watching like some club doubles matches or something, they'll spend like a minute or two on serves and returns before going into their practice set and y'all are spending. I think just the other day when I was with Tennis Warehouse filming your practice, y'all spent like 15 minutes or so, maybe more.

Speaker 2

Yeah, that sounds probably about right. Uh, today we probably spent about what? Half an hour serving, I would say out of a full hour practice full hour, yeah, working on serve and return, I think, yeah, you often see people warming up their serve and return and then that's about it, they just play. But yeah, it's really important to kind of dedicate some time to actually work on those individual skills for us so talk about your matchup here.

Speaker 1

In the first round you've got Marcelo Melo and then Alexander Zverev. They've played together a fair amount. Zverev's obviously focused more on singles and more of kind of a single style player. How do you handle a team like that, when you're facing one singles player and then one guy who's more of kind of a doubles player?

Speaker 3

It's an interesting team. Obviously it's not a new team. Like you said, they played surprisingly quite a bit together. They made the final of Monte Carlo last year. I actually played against them two years ago with a different partner. Zverev brings a great serve on the court, excellent returning, whereas Melo is the guy who's taking over the net. So it's a good combination for them. But sometimes we try to find their weaknesses. Obviously, zverev maybe not at home at the net, so we can try to attack him a little bit, make him feel uncomfortable at the net, whereas if we can keep Melo at the baseline, it's not easy because he wants to come in, but his ground strokes are weaker of the two. But at the same time, we have played so much doubles together and we know the way we play and that's very offensive. We got to keep that offensive mindset and just like, mostly focus on ourselves. But there are in every match. There are some shots where you can choose where to go, and this one is it's easy to choose.

Speaker 3

If they're both at the net, we go, it's where and there's like small, small changes to how we approach the game, but still mostly focus on what we do. We serve well, they are going to struggle with their returns. We well, they are going to struggle with their returns. We return well, they're going to struggle with their shots after the serve.

Speaker 1

So mostly focus on ourselves. Yeah, I'd imagine in a matchup like that there's specific points that are a little bit more difficult to win. So on Zverev's serve, it's more difficult to win the point. Or maybe a second serve to Zverev when Melo's already at the net. You probably don't want to get into an ad court rally with Zverev on his backhand side. So do you kind of break it down like that and have kind of a game plan for each type of point, or do you feel like that comes second nature to you at this point because you've been playing doubles for so long and you kind of get it?

Speaker 3

Yeah, I still believe we can break anyone, even if we swear for serving, and sometimes, funnily enough, you feel like you're going to break the weaker server but at the end you break Sferov twice in the match. That could easily happen. But, like you said, we probably don't want to get into exchange in long rallies with Sfera at the back. So then we try to break the rhythm, go with the lob or play a short one, attack mellow a little bit, just to, you know, not give much rhythm to Sphera. But again, the rallies in doubles nowadays they're mostly very short.

First Round Match Strategy

Speaker 3

So if we do our own thing, we keep the ball short and then hopefully they will struggle do you like the sunday start here uh, personally, yes, the the whole doubles event is three days shorter than it was last year, and that it's been in the past, and I think it's just for both of us. It gave three more days at home, which are not, which are very rare nowadays. I can, I can spend time with my kids three more days. I would choose that every time.

Speaker 1

Yeah, talk a little bit about the Australian Open victory. How did it compare to the win at Wimbledon last year?

Speaker 2

Yeah, it was a very different feeling. I mean, obviously, wimbledon, well, we were unseated in in the event, going in um, and so that that was very different. And also, um, the final we played there. The crowd was pretty full, um, and obviously a home crowd for me as well, and um, yeah, we, we had lots of friends and family there they're watching, so, um, yeah, you compare that to that, to the Australian Open, when we obviously went on very late, the stands were pretty empty at that time of night and we had a few loyal supporters, but nothing in comparison to what Wimbledon was like. So, yeah, I think, very, very close matches but very different matches. I think the first one somehow we found a way to get through and we learned a lot about ourselves and our pair and how we play best in tight situations through that match. I think that showed in Australia even after losing the first set tiebreak was it 18-16 or something?

Speaker 1

like that.

Speaker 2

Whatever it was, it was something crazy. At that point we kind of believed that we had the resilience and I think that came from the Wimbledon win. I mean, in terms of the emotions, I would say also very different, I think. Australia, we were both absolutely exhausted and it was kind of a relief that it was over. And, yeah, wimbledon was literally unbelievable and we were completely ecstatic and ready to celebrate with friends and family. So, um, yeah, very different. I mean, I cherish them both greatly. They were both, yeah, I mean, incredible experiences and still have to pinch myself looking back on those matches and how privileged we are to have played those matches, those kinds of matches, and also come out on top.

Grand Slam Victories Compared

Speaker 1

Um, so, yeah, different, different, yeah you mentioned you learned from the wimbledon final. Um, what have you? What did you learn from, like, I guess, a match perspective going into a grand slam final and then also the full two weeks, because players I've talked to in the past talk about just how mentally exhausting it can be to stay focused for that extended of a period of time. Um, so what? What have you learned, I guess, over the last year or so?

Speaker 2

um going into a big match and then how you handle a tournament overall yeah, well, I think, from from the Wimbledon match, we basically lost in every statistic apart from the one that matters, which is who won and who lost, and I think what that showed to us is we don't have to play our best, we don't have to dominate matches to win, and we can always be extremely difficult to beat, and I think that's been kind of a mantra for us. You know whether we're playing well badly. I think last week in Dubai is a good example of that. You know, we kind of were struggling through the matches and ended up making the final. It was, you know, a great week, but I don't think we ever kind of found our top gear but still managed to get through those matches and win, which is when you're playing as many matches as us on the tour and the margins are so fine. That's a really useful skill to have.

Speaker 2

What have we learned about playing long tournaments? I don't know. You just have to look after yourself. I think Australia was a good example. I think was it the day before the final? We actually chose not to practice on that day, which, I think if we were less experienced experienced we would kind of feel that we had to practice, but um, yeah, we both had a few niggles and and we had the maturity to say, no, look, we've hit enough tennis balls over this fortnight, let's take a day off and make sure we're fresh for the final.

Speaker 2

I think that, looking back on it and seeing how long that final was, I think that paid dividends. So, um, yeah, just looking after yourself a bit, not being too hard on yourself, those kinds of things, staying positive throughout, make the difference what about for you, harry, other than no sweets until you win the finals?

Speaker 3

yeah, no sweets until we win the final. Yeah, it's a long tournament, the Grand Slam tournament, especially when you play until the end. I think what we also learned was, after winning a Grand Slam, you need to take several weeks off the mind or the body. They're not ready to play tournaments a week after that. This time we took three weeks off and I think it was the right decision to do. We were planning to play dallas only a week after australian open. We decided last minute not travel there and was the best decision. We did this this year so far and yeah, I mean australian open. Winning that second grand slam it shows that the first one and winning that second Grand Slam it shows that the first one wasn't an accident. We really deserved to win those and super happy, also lucky, to be able to play those finals and win them. We kind of feel a little sorry for the Italians. It was their third final and they lost all three. We played two and we won both Small margins, but they've gone our way so far.

Coaching Relationships and Feedback

Speaker 1

Um, so I chatted with your coach, uh, henry calvin, um, back in australia. What is something you've learned from him as a coach that you would maybe, uh, if you could like, choose one lesson to send out to everyone else?

Speaker 2

um, one thing from calvin, um, I think I think he finds that balance of kind of criticizing yourself and also giving yourself credit very well.

Speaker 2

Um, he's yeah, it's difficult to explain. I mean, we've worked together for maybe two years, all the way up from futures, and he has a great understanding of what I need and how I operate and I think you know for other coaches, that's probably the most important thing is just fully understanding what what the player wants, um, and needs from a feedback point of view. Um, and it took quite quite a while to master that at the start he was maybe giving me a little bit too much feedback and I think that can be distracting from what you're trying to do. But at the same time, I get quite frustrated, if you know I'm struggling, struggling, struggling in a practice and you know he's not really giving me any information and it changes from player to player a lot. And, yeah, I think that just cultivates a good relationship on court. It makes you feel like you're working together towards the same goal. So, um, yeah, I'd say open communication and and trying to understand how much or how little feedback a player wants is, yeah, really important what did that look like?

Speaker 1

early on? You said he over like gave you too much feedback early on. So would this be like in a practice and he would just be in your ear the whole time?

Speaker 2

yeah exactly like it's too you're flooded.

Speaker 2

It's too much information, and I mean to his credit, I would probably go on the side of probably less feedback. So I think you know that was an adjustment period, but sure, yeah, for me you know we'd be, I don't know, say random example working on you know forehands cross court and I would miss one or two balls and he would kind of, you know, interrupt and stop and kind of break it down, Whereas I think now he says he has a rule. I think if he sees me do the same thing four times and I'm not figuring it out for myself then he comes in and gives me feedback.

Speaker 2

So, um, yeah, I think obviously there's many, many more things that he does very well and he's been a huge part of our success as a pair. Uh, the whole coaching team around us. You know, boris has his own uh sorry, harry has his own coach, boris, who works with us. Um, then we have louis kaya, who I know you've spoken to as well, kind of overseeing.

The State of Professional Doubles

Speaker 1

So, yeah, I just think the relationship is the most important thing and the relationships that we have with our whole coaching team kind of is what we hold on to the most, and then for Calvin to have that kind of self-awareness, to understand like I'm over delivering information, I'm like giving too much feedback, and to be able to dial it back, I think is really important. Yeah, a lot of coaches you see it at the lower levels of tennis will just talk players ear off, not let them hit the balls and figure it out on their own. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense finding that balance. So I want to talk about kind of the doubles news. Recently, obviously, there's been a lot of chatter between Opelka and Roddick and Wertheim and I've had my own opinions, uh, on this podcast and, uh, various other platforms. Um, what do? Well, let me start with this. A lot of people think that women's doubles is in a better spot than the men's side, than the ATP side. Uh, do you agree with that and, if so, why do you think that's the case?

Speaker 2

Good question. I mean, certainly they have more singles players playing doubles. I think you'll see that. So I guess you know, if that's your goal is to have more of the singles players playing, then yes, they're definitely doing a better job with that than the ATP is.

Speaker 2

At the same time, I don't know if I see, you know, the combined events was really the only time that we've seen them. I don't know if I see that much difference in terms of sort of the crowd or the draw of the two events. I don't think there's a huge difference there. I would say. But yeah, I don't't know. Difficult to tell. I mean, I know, I know the. You know, I have friends who obviously play wta doubles and I know that the prize money in the atp for the men's doubles is much better, um, which I think is an important factor to take into consideration when you're talking about the product as a whole. Um, yeah, I don't know. I think it's difficult to say. I think they're both kind of. I think they'd both like to be contributing more to the Torts, I think.

Speaker 1

Harry.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I think WTA doubles women's doubles in general is maybe more relatable for the club-level player. They see longer rallies. They see different tactics, even two-back when they're serving, whereas the men's doubles most of the teams play quite in a similar fashion. They want to finish the points very quickly and that maybe gives a little advantage to the women's doubles as a product. You get crazy rallies more often than the men's doubles but at the same time the true doubles fans. They also appreciate what the men's doubles is and how small things we focus on, how little the margins are and what you have to do to win a doubles match. I think both men's and women's doubles are very interesting and we also have the mixed doubles which nowadays I've had a lot of discussion, yeah.

Speaker 1

So let's transition to that. Thoughts on the US Open changes mixed doubles. And then also, what would you like to see in terms of mixed doubles going forward? And then also, what would you like to see in terms of mixed doubles going forward? Let's say, if you had the power to make the changes yourself. Harry, I know you've won the US Open mixed doubles title, so we'll start with you.

Speaker 3

Thank you for mentioning One of the highlights of my career honestly. I mean, obviously, winning a Grand Slam is something special. I think mixed doubles has great entertainment value. It's also one of the you know, tennis is one of the only sports where you can put men and women on the same court and you can play a competitive match and it's amazing. It's great for tennis and I believe when we can have more mixed doubles and big stadiums on TV, that's all just very, very positive for tennis.

Speaker 3

Personally, for myself, what they did at the US Open is not good, but I still see that I can understand the point of view from the tournament side where they want to increase the exposure of mixed doubles. They want to make it entertaining. They can get it in primetime TV. That's great for mixed doubles. Hopefully in the future we could have some double specialists, some doubles, you know, players who are exciting enough or, like famous enough to be part of that mixed doubles and but I think maybe next year that we could try that. But let's see. It's an interesting trial this year. I I don't want to judge it before I see what it is, how do we?

Speaker 1

um and last question I know you all have to get ready for your next practice um, so you mentioned, hopefully in the future and mixed doubles. We can have some of the doubles players who are, I guess, famous enough or popular enough to where you know ESPN is willing to put them on TV right? One of my questions that I wrote down is very related to that. How can the next Harry Heliovar, the next Henry Patton, be as popular as, say, grigor Dimitrov or Andrei Rublev or something or something like that? You know, maybe it's not possible. I hate to think this way, honestly, personally, but a lot of people say, like it's not. You know, doubles will never be as popular as singles. Um, I don't even like to think that way, but like well, I mean certainly it's a long way off right when you when you compare uh, you know, the singles stars, uh, and the double stars, there's there's no comparison at the moment.

Speaker 2

I think what we'd really like to do is is, when you compare the singles stars and the doubles stars, there's no comparison at the moment. I think what we'd really like to do is narrow the gap as much as we can. And I think, as I mentioned earlier, I think there's been a lot of commentary about doubles players kind of taking more money than they deserve and all the rest of it. But I just want to contribute as much as I can to to the atp tour, I want to be part of the atp tour and, and you know, I want to prove my worth and my value in any way that I can. Um, and so that's that's kind of the mission from my standpoint.

Making Doubles Players More Popular

Speaker 2

I think for me and this is just from my experience, you know, know people that I know and people from the UK really care about doubles. I know it's the same for Harry. You know, even at practice today he had a few Finns come up to him. He's been boasting recently about he's being recognized in supermarkets and he's on the telly in Finland all the time.

Speaker 1

I think that's from his blog, though, yeah from his blog.

Speaker 2

It's not the tennis results, which is great all the time, and I think that's from his blog, though yeah, from his blog it's not the tennis result, which is great, but whatever it is, you got to give it to him, um, and I think that that proves that it's possible for doubles players and fans to have a connection if fans are invested in doubles players and they have, or feel that they have, some kind of relationship with doubles players. So for me, the question is how do we kind of broaden that relationship, how do we broaden those interactions to a wider group of fans? And that is a difficult question. Lots of people have different theories on it. I mean, we've been throwing ideas around lately, but I think Harry's blog is a great example and he's kind of taken it upon himself to try and broaden that connection and interact with people. He has people commenting on his blogs and having conversations, and that's fantastic.

Speaker 2

So I think you know you have to kind of look in the mirror for a second. You know I need to do a better job on social media, maybe of kind of showing people what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis. You know, could I do a better job of that A hundred percent. I would love to see the atp in tournaments kind of get more involved in that. Us doubles players don't have as many sponsorship commitments, we don't have as many kind of media duties, so for me that's kind of a low-hanging fruit.

Speaker 2

You know, if you need, you know I don't know a tour of of the event or a little behind the scenes action, I don't see why you, you couldn't choose doubles player to to kind of do that and produce some entertaining content, whether the fans know the doubles player or not initially. So, yeah, I mean, I, I, I, I hope it improves and it always comes back to you know, I I do think that there needs to be a bit more promotion and marketing from all sides, including the doubles guys. I think we can all do a better job of that and, yeah, hopefully the ATP figures out a way to kind of invest in a way that appeases all stakeholders. I think that's the main issue. So, yeah, we'll see, harry, what do you think?

Speaker 3

No, you've said a lot of great things, thank you, yeah, but I believe the ATP, of course, is a worldwide tour but we have so many small markets where actually doubles players are bigger stars than the singles guys because they are local, and that's something that I don't know. Maybe on the tour it's not really reused much. We have Marcel Arevalo is. El Salvador is a big hero in the country India. Huge doubles focus over there. How many great doubles they have. Maybe doubles is more popular than singles.

Speaker 1

A huge market.

Speaker 3

So there is some value in those kinds and, like you said, finland, in my case, is now super interested in doubles. All of a sudden Success brings that kind of an interest which makes us interested. That's what the fans like and of course, with success it's even easier to be interesting how do you think about the balance?

Speaker 1

because you talked about, like henry said, you know you can be a little better on social media, but you're also here playing a professional tennis event and you have to practice twice a day and you have to eat right and exercise and take care of your body and like not stare at your phone all day. Um, how do you balance that and what message would you have, say for other players who might be listening to this, um, who are saying like I don't have time to do the social media stuff. I'm trying to win tennis matches yeah.

Speaker 2

Well, I mean, of course that is true, um, but well, I mean I go back to what I said earlier. You know, I would be really surprised if doubles players were doing as much in a day when it comes to kind of media sponsorship, press conferences, um interviews, those kinds of things, as as the singles guys are doing. So I think we as a group need to kind of again kind of look at ourselves and I think if we come together as a group then good things can happen. But truly, I mean, you know, you look at, obviously, what's happened with the mixed doubles. I think we probably need to kind of get a move on if we want to continue having this as our career and really prove our worth to the ATP and yeah, hopefully they can get behind us a little bit as well. But it's going to require an effort, an active effort, for sure.

Speaker 1

Awesome guys. Well, thanks a ton for joining me. Hopefully we can do it again at some point down the road, and good luck this week. Thank you very much, pleasure.