Under the ATP radar

This week the ATP tour finals are running in London. This event epitomises the whole world tour that starts in the last week of December of the previous year, and as from the second week of November gives the players a well-earned pause for six weeks.

Of course this is a tournament pause, but in fact many of the players, as most dedicated athletes do, will take this opportunity to review their games, and get down to some targetted practice that isn't possible in the hurly-burly of the season.

The ATP is itself a huge brand, a symbol of the organisational and marketing power of professional tennis. I'm firmly convinced that the ATP is no marketing or sales gimmick like so many commercial things are. It is true they throw up some razzmatazz at events like in London, but this extreme showiness is well justifed. They are so proud of their players, and this collection of players playing for the final big money of the season, is to see how the players really are. They are out there playing for money. Most of them are aware of titles and record books, but most of them are not really title-chasers, or record-breakers. They are just honest hard-working types earning their livings. They don't want to lose just as any businessman doesn't want to lose out on a deal. He wants to have the best reputation, the best attributes, the best current form. He wants to be in demand.

Business and Brands

It is the doubles which somehow makes the ATP finals special. Most of the year, sadly, the best doubles players go underneath the radar. Only at Wimbledon have I seen any doubles this year on TV, and it's always been thrilling. Yet the marketeers insist that we aren't interested in it.

Old man`s game

Doubles is the game which we can more easily relate to. There are players out there who are old, too old for singles, but still perform excellently at doubles. Doubles throws up players who'll never have the pure gladiatorial appeal of a Djokovic, a man on a mission for titles, records and winnability. Doubles throws up teams, not individuals. What I can't understand is how we, the general public, apparently so team-obsessessed with for example, Liverpool or Manchester United, or England or Brazil, can ignore the team appeal of tennis. Tennis as a team sport is the most thrilling experience. Any tennis player will tell you of, as a singles player, having technical and strategic and physical challenges over a career, and taking on these challenges one by one. However, in doubles, the personal challenges, while present, are not the priority. The team is everything.

We have sixteen doubles players present at the ATP finals, and they are all fantastic players, none of them is a real household name. We only know the Bryan brothers because they have won so much, but they haven't stamped their mark on the game like a Djokovic, or a del Potro, even though they have won more than them.

ATP champions

On TV today is the last group game. The Bryans, with their routine, and brotherly, twinned, sixth sense, bring to the court a harmony that somehow doesn't look like it needs work. They are there for each other. They know each other inside out. Their ambition for each other, is a family ambition, a natural sibling protective instinct. It's beautiful.

Opposite we have Leander Paes, who, as a teen prodigy reached the 70s as a singles player, but quickly jacked that in, and concentrated on doubles, winning, like the Bryans, countless titles. He is now in his late thirties, with a little paunch, and unfashionable long hair, but he is a doubles player. He loves serving and smashing. He can be at net all day and never tire of it. He moves into every hole on the court, making the minutest adjustments to keep getting his balls in play. Like every good doubles player, he has hot streaks. These streaks are when, for a sequence of several key points in a match, he seems to be reading and executing on a level that a Djokovic, or a Federer himself could not achieve. It's truly remarkable.

Classic

At Paes' side is a new partner, Radek Stepanek, a confirmed singles player, with old-fashioned singles skills, one of those rare players who uses a net game consequentially to win singles points. He does this better than Federer, del Potro and the like. His approach and volley game is mature and applied. The great singles players of today simply don't have that. So Stepanek is something of a throwback, to a time when volleying in singles was an essential skill.

Also exceptionally, Stepanek was a top twenty singles player. That means he's been travelling the world this year, being regularly successful in singles, and clearly doing a lot right in doubles too, with or without Paes, because I don't think they always find themselves at the same venues. Doubles and singles are, today, very different games, but in fact, Stepanek plays them both similarly, and he is an expert at both. He's a wonderful player.

The doubles I'm watching is magical. The instincts of the Bryans brothers against the sublime boyish talents of Paes, with the classical skills of Stepanek. It is a beautiful game, and everyone should be watching this.

Above all, you can really see at the ATP finals, it's a team game. The Bryans famously do chest bumps. On big point wins, they both jump and bounce off each other's chests. Paes and Stepanek have just won a point, and have just done a chest bump. What a great celebration that is!

And, because it's a team game, when Stepanek wins, he'll take Paes in his arms and hug him as if he was the most important thing in the world.

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