Why India’s male players are flocking to doubles — and what it means for tennis in the country

On March 1, Indian men’s tennis enjoyed a rare moment of glorious sunshine. At the Dubai ATP 500, Yuki Bhambri — alongside Australian Alexei Popyrin — won his biggest doubles crown till date. At the Chile Open ATP 250, Rithvik Bollipalli — partnering Colombian Nicolas Barrientos — claimed his second career title, and at the Bengaluru Open ATP 125 Challenger, Anirudh Chandrasekar — in the company of Taiwan’s Ray Ho — lifted his most significant trophy yet.

At a time when the singles game in the country is gasping for breath — World No. 132 Sumit Nagal is the only Indian in the top-400 and the only one to win Challengers in the last three years — the doubles results have come like oxygen.

Stark dichotomy

In the recent four-Challenger home swing, Indian players won a grand total of one singles match. But in doubles, Saketh Myneni, Ramkumar Ramanathan and Niki Poonacha reached finals while Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, Vijay Sundar Prashanth and Anirudh triumphed.

The latest rankings feature as many as six Indians in the doubles top-100, with another four between 101 and 170. Bhambri and Bollipalli enjoy career-highs of 39 — 18 places behind leader Rohan Bopanna — and 65 respectively. As does Sriram Balaji at 61. Anirudh is up 30 places to 109, 22 shy of his best-ever.

“I feel it is the pathway that has been laid out by Leander [Paes], Mahesh [Bhupathi] and Rohan,” Anirudh told The Hindu when asked why Indian doubles was doing well. “Indians, I feel, are naturally very skilful. We play on really fast surfaces, develop a net game from a very young age and also serve and volley. The sense of doubles is also very high because we practise it from a very young age.”

It is a theory expounded by Bopanna too, as he told The Tennis Tribe podcast last year. But possessing the required skill-set — dexterity, supple wrists, better hand-eye coordination, etc. — is just one part of it. Honing it to meet modern-day requirements needs a nurturing environment.

It is here that the Doubles Dream of India programme has helped. Launched in January 2023 by the Pune Metropolitan District Tennis Association with help from industrialist Kishor Patil, and mentored by Bopanna, it has supported players with coaches and physios for at least 25 weeks of the calendar.

Coaches Raven Klaasen (former doubles World No. 7) and M. Balachandran and physios Kiran Kumar and Abhimanyu Singh have taken turns to travel, and with two or three players invariably finding themselves in either the same tournament or in close geographical proximity, a single coach-physio combination can potentially help multiple players.

“The sponsors, Rohan, coaches and the physios in the Doubles Dream programme are all doing a great job,” said Bollipalli. “We get to travel with a coach and physio most weeks of the year. It’s cost effective and great support. There are a lot of positives and results-wise we are all feeding off each other.”

Starting 2022, seven Indians have won Tour-level titles (ATP 250 and above), including Bopanna (seven trophies), Bhambri (four), Bollipalli (two) and Ramkumar (two). In Challengers, 13 Indians have claimed the top prize, including Myneni (12), Bhambri (eight), Balaji (seven), Arjun Kadhe and Anirudh (six each).

Creditable, not extraordinary

It’s indeed true that doubles is not as competitive and physically demanding as singles, but the format is pretty fickle, especially outside the four Majors. No-ad scoring (the first point after deuce wins the game) and a 10-point tiebreaker instead of a third set make upsets more likely and consistency hard to achieve. The accomplishments are thus creditable even if not extraordinary.

Among the prime reasons why Indians are flocking to doubles is because the transition from Futures (lowest rung) to Challengers and then to the Tour is not as hard as in singles. Challenger and Tour-level competitions also offer better prize money, and even if the doubles purse is significantly smaller than singles, players believe they can make a living.

In fact, last December, the ATP announced a record $28.5 million in prize money for Challengers in 2025 (singles and doubles), up from $22.3 million in 2024, $21.1 million in 2023 and $12.1 million in 2022. Where in 2022 there were just 20 Challenger 125s and 16 Challenger 100s, 2023 saw a whopping 35 and 41 respectively, and 2024, 33 and 41. Starting 2023, ATP has also added five Challenger 175s to the schedule.

Such has been the effect that Bollipalli and Anirudh are now full-time doubles practitioners, despite being just 24 and 26 respectively. There was a time when doubles used to be populated by over-the-hill singles players and those with chronic injuries. But not anymore, for players seem driven by the desire to feature in the biggest tournaments.

Bollipalli made his Slam debut at the 2025 Australian Open while Anirudh has played both the 2024 and 2025 editions in Melbourne. For winning in Chile, Bollipalli earned $17,990. A first-round loss at the Australian Open fetched him nearly $12,500.

“When I was in college [University of South Florida], I had a disk bulge in my lower back,” said Bollipalli. “I tried to play a little bit of singles after that but I was struggling to recover. My level in doubles was much better and I thought ‘why not give it a shot’. I was already at a rank where I could get into Challengers and that kept me motivated. This year, I have played just Tour events and that’s a good thing. This is the real deal and where the tougher opponents are.”

The critical question

The larger question, however, is whether doubles deeds can trigger a revival of the sport in the country. They have helped in maintaining the game’s footprint, but the legendary Vijay Amritraj is steadfast in his belief that only good singles results — like 15-year-old Maaya Rajeshwaran’s stirring semifinal run at the WTA 125 Mumbai Open — can re-energise the whole setting.

“Practically impossible,” declared Amritraj, who excelled both in singles and doubles. “You can win in Davis Cup with four singles. But you cannot do it with one doubles. We have everyone play doubles everywhere but we are still not able to win singles in Challengers. That’s a big concern.”

Amritraj also quipped that there was nothing to stop present-day players from competing in both, despite the sport having become more physically demanding. “When I played, matches were all five sets, even at normal tournaments,” the 71-year-old said. “In the National Championships, I played singles semifinals five sets, final five sets and doubles five sets. It is part of the process towards becoming fit and playing long matches.

“Today, only the Slams are five sets [singles]. Doubles is three sets and the third is not even a set. Frankly, the incentive is so great to play singles [$80,000 for a first-round loser at 2025 Australian Open]. If you train really hard, make the top-100 in singles, then top-50 and top-20, doubles would become very easy because you are fit enough to do it. Not the other way around.”