TMS - MADRID

October 23, 2005

Mark Knowles

Daniel Nestor

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

DANIEL NESTOR: Fourth.

MARK KNOWLES: Fourth.

DANIEL NESTOR: We're still involved in negotiating with the tour. We don't really know where we stand right now. I think after Shanghai, a lot of decisions will be made. We're hoping we can play regular scoring. We feel like we made some significant concessions over the last couple years. Singles guys can use their rankings to play, the draws are smaller, there's basically less doubles players out there. Singles guys basically have every opportunity they want to play doubles. The only issue is the scoring with them. Obviously, we played different scoring last week, and other players played it the last few weeks. There wasn't much positive feedback from it. There's too much luck involved when the match is so short and when you're playing with the scoring like this. We just feel like, you know, doubles can be promoted a lot better, differently than singles, as well. It's a different skill set. We feel if the tour makes an effort to promote us better, we're going -- everyone is going to reap the rewards.

MARK KNOWLES: I think, like Daniel said. Both of us, we still play singles for Davis Cup and we play singles for 10, 12 years on tour. Obviously, now we're a little later in our career, so we're mostly playing doubles and we're doing very well. I don't think there's a problem with the present product. I mean, two years ago we changed the ranking system to allow the singles guys to get in on their singles ranking. As you see, I think Nadal played 13 events this year, Safin played 12 events. They're playing quite a lot. There's not a problem with the product. The ATP and the tournaments keep saying the product is broken, but it's not true. You have the great doubles teams like the Bryans, Bjorkman/Mirnyi, and you have great singles players Lopez, Nadal, Davydenko, Andreev, a lot of good singles players playing as well. So it creates a great draw, great competition. However, there's very little promotion and the tournaments really don't make an effort at all to promote doubles or even get it out there. As you can see today, we had a great crowd. Even though we started very early, 12:00, the singles not till 3:30, but people want to see tennis, especially doubles. Like Daniel said, it's a different skill set. It's more fast hands, more volleys, four guys on a court, different parameters. I think it's something that the ATP and the tournaments should try to focus on more. A more exciting game sometimes. Four guys on a court. Different angles, so forth. It can complement singles very well. I don't think the answer is to get rid of doubles players. It's tough for the singles guys to play every week. I don't think -- I've spoken to a lot of guys like Federer, Roddick, they're not going to play more. It's tough, it's very tough physically, very demanding. You know, whether we play games to five, whether we play a tiebreaker, they're not going to play any more. The only thing it's going to do is allow guys ranked 75 in the world in singles to get in. I don't think that they should necessarily be awarded to play doubles when they're not necessarily great doubles players. It would be different, obviously I'm like everybody else, I'd like to see Federer, Roddick, these guys play a lot more doubles. They've said they're not going to play more, and we know they're not going to play more based on the last two years. As Daniel said, they have the opportunity. If you're ranked 10 in singles, you're ranked 10 in doubles. You can use either ranking.

DANIEL NESTOR: We would love to get more television exposure. We feel like obviously that's the first set in promotion. People are going to recognize us more, they're going to get more interested. They're going to enjoy our matches more. I don't see why it's a huge problem to start our match maybe at 1, 1:30. If there's an opportunity for us to be in a third-set tiebreaker late in the third set, it's the scheduled singles time, it's going to be an exciting point in the match; people are going to be interested. You show a little bit of the doubles. You look at rock concerts, they always have something leading into the main event. I think that's the way doubles should be used. Boxing, there's an undercard. We're not trying to be the main event; we're just trying to complement singles. I think we could be used a lot better.

MARK KNOWLES: Yeah, definitely.

MARK KNOWLES: Yes.

DANIEL NESTOR: Yes.