The idea of a doubles event has always been in the minds of many people. It’s been brought up to debate again when one of the Mark Williams said the following:
This idea was positively received. Many people were already thinking of their dream line-ups: Ronnie O’Sullivan & Jimmy White or Mark Williams & Stephen Hendry sound delicious. Then some people would rather see pairs with an incredibly tense history between them: O’Sullivan & Mark Selby or Mark Allen & Mark Joyce, for example. Oh dear..
Of course, this isn’t the first time people have thought of a doubles tournament. In fact, these events have already happened. The World Doubles Championship took place between 1983 and 1986 and for a further year in 1987 as the Fosters World Doubles. The winning pairs included Alex Higgins & Jimmy White (1984) and Steve Davis & Tony Meo (1982-3; 1985-6). We also have the World Cup too. The 80s and 90s had teams of three players and since 2011 it became a doubles event. In the past four World Cups, China won three of those editions. There are many entertaining exhibitions featuring doubles that get the jubilant crowd going. One example of this was when Kyren Wilson and Mark Allen teamed up to make the maximum break, with both players celebrating by hugging each other!
How would I organise the doubles event?
The World Cup matches consisted of five frames, two singles, a doubles frame, and two reverse singles. Each player in a team takes turns, except when someone starts a break. Would this catch on here? Would plenty of players flock to have a bit of fun and win a trophy? Is there anyone entertaining and suitable enough to buddy with?
I think this should be a non-ranking event for 32 players. Or 16 pairs, if you are incredibly bad at maths. This should be open to everyone to enter, an invitational where the priority should go to the top-ranked players or legends. Only then will they be drawn into pairs – one from the highest-ranked 16 players and another from the lowest-ranked. This way the pairs are performing at a level playing field. There is some criticism that some younger talent don’t get a lot of TV time. This is a great opportunity for this to happen, coupled with another big name. One disadvantage with that is this makes it less likely to get dream teams and these pairs will be more haphazard, of course.
I would like to see this as a non-ranking event. These will be scotch pairs, meaning each player within a pair would take turns, regardless of whether they are in a middle of a break or not. Each match would be a BO5, with the semi-final being BO7 and a BO9 final. I can only assume that scotch doubles matches are longer than a normal match. The length of matches is one that I’m not sure about yet.
What do you think?
