Pro Doubles Match Where All Four Players Were Tanking!?

You may think you’ve seen it all on a tennis court but here is the story of an incident that no tennis observer could ever have possibly imagined. There was a professional ATP doubles match where all four players were trying to tank!

A good friend was a former ATP player for about a decade, playing Futures and Satellites and some Davis Cup. I asked him a question about if he ever saw some incidents of a doubles partners blaming each other and the discussion evolved to the revelation of a match that involved all four players trying to lose!

“I have seen a double tank in doubles, at a Futures in Algeria. That was a sight to see!”

I replied, “The players were just firing crazy returns out? Why would they do that?

“Yes because all four players wanted to play qualies of singles the following week. And if they won, they would miss it. And if they defaulted they would get fined. So they all needed to lose. It was unreal… who could tank better [laughs].”

So one team won that didn’t want to win?

“Yes, exactly.”

After telling this story to another ex pro player, he revealed a story about seeing three players trying to tank in the doubles of a Challenger: “I experienced that one time, three out of four were tanking in a big Challenger in San Marino because three wanted to leave for Bundesliga. The guy who wanted to win was Marcus Hilpert playing with Jens Knippschild against Gaston Gaudio and Mariano Puerta. It was before they were good in singles.”

Algeria · ATP · ATP World Tour · Futures

Comments are closed.

<< He told her on court, “I love you”

Coaching Changes >>