The Nielsen and Marray Fairytale

The scratch doubles partnership of Nielsen and Marray won Wimbledon. A real feel good story but the fairytale continues now that the pair have qualified for the semi finals of the WTF. To do so they beat two specialist doubles partnerships (Bhupathi and Bopanna and Mirnyi and Nestor)

Not wanting to take anything away from the less experienced pair but what does their success say about the standard or seriousness of professional doubles today?

I think they're two main elements as to why Marray and Nielsen are doing so well.

1) They complement each other really well. Marray's superb touch around the net allied to Nielsen's extremely solid volleying means they hardly ever get broken. They have great confidence in each other's net game which means that once they have position at the net they rarely lose the point. They're both quite "streaky" returners, don't make that many returns but those they make tend to be very effective (esp. Nielsen). Now in doubles if you're holding your own serve it only takes a service break to get the set, so one "streaky" game usually enough. They also play the key points really well, always seem to make the right choice.

2) The "freshness" element. Given they haven't played too much together, but have had success when they have done, there's still a sense of real enjoyment of playing together. Also, because they haven't played much together their opponents probably know less about them, which patterns they're most comfortable with, etc.

What is says about the standard of doubles is pretty simple: unfortunately doubles are a "lesser" form of tennis. The top singles players if they decided to play doubles seriously would probably clean up fairly easily IMO (their quality of returning esp. would stand out). Sorry if that sounds harsh but it's how I see it...

Marray's bank manager must be happy - $115,000 this week so far.
What a great story for a guy who was, let's face it, pretty much a journeyman player for 11 years. Now he's a Wimby champ and having the time of his life at the WTF. Fairytale stuff indeed!

Mad for Chelsea wrote:They're both quite "streaky" returners, don't make that many returns but those they make tend to be very effective (esp. Nielsen). Now in doubles if you're holding your own serve it only takes a service break to get the set, so one "streaky" game usually enough. They also play the key points really well, always seem to make the right choice.
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I think that is a particularly perceptive analysis of what they do. Must be a nightmare to play against because you never know when the streaky return is coming.

It's such a great story, I'd love to see them win it.

It was reported earlier in the week that Marray has resorted to posting a 'Wanted' ad via the ATP for a new partner, due to the fact that Nielsen has said (more than once apparently) that he intends to re-focus on his "singles career"

With all due respect to the guy, he will be 30 y.o next summer, is currently ranked 362 in singles and I don't imagine he's ever been close to a tour singles Final of any description. Is it not just a tad too late for that sort of re-focussing .....??

Meanwhile, here's hoping they really can take the title this week !!

They did so well - what a pity that Nielsen doesn't want to concentrate on the doubles and their partnership. I would have thought that going back to the challenger circuit would be very hard after the bright lights of the O2.

So Nielsen wants to play singles, which by all accounts he is pretty crummy at, instead of earning a decent living at doubles. With this clear career thinking, he'll be going on I'm a Celebrity or becoming dir-gen of the BBC next.

The Challenger circuit is dog eat dog where you;re lucky to get more than 30 ATP points and $2000...barely enough to pay for having your kit washed all year round. Unless he's got obvious quality to quickly rise through the CH circuit he'll get disillusioned then come back to Jonny in 12 months...