Familiarity breeds winning? In doubles, that's not always the case

Mike Bryan—half of arguably the greatest doubles team of all time—was forced to play Wimbledon this year without his brother Bob, who is sidelined with a hip injury.

Bryan entered the tournament with his compatriot Jack Sock, and the duo proceeded to take the title over the new-for-2018 pairing of Michael Venus and Raven Klaasen in five sets.

That’s not a bad result for a team with a 1-1 overall record together.

Conversely, Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova, the women’s champions, were former partners in the juniors who’ve reunited on the senior tour this year to take two majors so far.

That’s two different approaches with the same result. Which path is the best one to follow?

Some "scratch" teams—ones playing together just for a week or two—have been able to gel instantly, as evidenced by Sock and Bryan. Last week, among the five tournaments played between the two tours, three of the doubles events were won by players with little to no playing experience together. Jonathan Erlich and Artem Sitak, the champions in Newport, made the quarterfinals at Wimbledon—with different partners: Marcin Matkowski and Divij Sharan, respectively. Sitak and Sharan were the top seeds in Atlanta this week, but dropped their opening match, as did Erlich, who partnered Joe Salisbury there.

The tournament, which kicks off the North American summer hard-court stretch, only has two teams remaining comprised of players that have competed in at least five tournaments together in 2018: Luke Bambridge and Jonny O’Mara, and the third seeds, Nicholas Monroe and John-Patrick Smith. The latter duo reached the quarterfinals of last year’s US Open, but rather than build upon that momentum, they only played two events together for the rest of the year. In 2018, the pair has attempted to rectify that to an extent: They were finalists in Delray Beach and will contest a semifinal match in Atlanta on Friday.

When they weren’t playing together, Monroe took the court with nine other players to varied results, with the best finish a runner-up spot alongside Ben McLachlan in Turkey.

McLachlan, who has had most of his success with Jan-Lennard Struff, is in a situation similar to Monroe: Their respective partners are still out there trying to build their singles games at this point in their careers.

WATCH—Throwback to the Bryan Brothers showing off their crib in 2005:

Singles, and all it entails, affects the doubles game, as well. Some players use it as an opportunity to get in extra match play over the course of a tournament and either team up with their like-minded peers, or partner up with one of the game’s specialists. And on occasion, doubles becomes particularly enticing for singles players as seen this year in Indian Wells, where a $1 million bonus was on the line for any player who swept both disciplines.

Choosing to be close to home can also lead to some interesting combinations. Rajeev Ram and Ivan Dodig, ranked 15 in the Race to London, are continents apart: Ram is in Atlanta with fellow American Ryan Harrison, while the Croat Dodig entered Hamburg with Jean-Julien Rojer.

Like Mike Bryan, Rojer has been forced to adjust to life on tour without his longtime partner, Horia Tecau. The two-time Grand Slam champions haven’t taken the court together in months due to Tecau’s injury woes.

On the women’s side, Australian Open champs Timea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic have been quite consistent, as has Siniakova and Krejcikova. Two players near the top of the rankings, though, have had opposite results from each other as they’ve taken on multiple partners through the year.

Last year, Latisha Chan dominated the game with Hall of Famer Martina Hingis. After Hingis retired, Chan entered the 2018 season with a fellow Grand Slam champion, Andrea Hlavackova. That partnership didn’t go as planned, and Chan has struggled to find any measure of success in women’s doubles this year, after winning 11 titles in 2017.

Demi Schuurs, on the other hand, has found variety to be the spice of life. The young Dutchwoman has won five tournaments this year with three different partners. It’s similar to what Sock has accomplished in 2018: The American has won four tournaments with four different partners—on all three surfaces.

While mixing it up can pay off, eventually, the cream does rise to the top. The year-end championships reward the players who’ve stuck together for the bulk of the year and built their ranking up in tandem. The ATP World Championships do invite the Grand Slam winners, no matter how much they’ve played together.

That could bode well for Mike Bryan if Bob is sidelined for an extended period. This week, Mike was slated to play in Atlanta with Sock, but that plan was thwarted by an ankle injury to Sock. Instead, Bryan is teaming up with Frances Tiafoe—who has one career doubles final on his ever-growing resume.

Can lightning strike twice again for Bryan with another young American? The team won its opening-round match to advance to the quarterfinals, where they’ll face the second seeds, Harrison and Ram.

It’s an all-scratch-team battle as Bryan is thrust into an unfamiliar role, that of the underdog. Tiafoe’s exuberance could be the difference-maker in this match-up.

With few firmly established teams playing this week, all of the tournaments could be up for grabs by new champions—who could go on to the next partner within a few days’ time.

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