“Hopefully they won’t do that to us”: Washington doubles champions voice fear over ATP’s proposed cuts spreading to WTA

Erin Routliffe and Aldila Sutjiadi used their winner’s press conference in Washington to voice concern that the ATP’s proposed cuts to doubles could eventually reach the women’s tour, even as they praised a separate ATP initiative to mic up doubles players for fan content.

The pair had just beaten Katarina Klepac and Miyu Ninomiya 6-4, 6-1 to win the Mubadala DC Open doubles title, in their first tournament back together after three and a half years apart.

The ATP is currently weighing a package of reforms that could take effect from 2028, including cutting Masters 1000 doubles draws from 32 teams to 16, halving ATP 500 and 250 doubles fields to eight teams, and reducing the share of prize money allocated to doubles from 20 percent to 10 percent.

The proposals have already drawn public criticism from specialists including Bob and Mike Bryan and reigning Wimbledon champions Lloyd Glasspool and Julian Cash.

“We do make our living as doubles players”

Asked about the fight, Sutjiadi did not hide her unease. “It’s been, like, definitely a bit tough to hear about the new rules change maybe for the ATP, but hopefully they won’t do that to us, because I feel like a lot of people love watching doubles,” she said. “We do make our living as doubles players, so that would be, like, helpful to have still the same rules for the doubles.”

Routliffe framed the issue as one of visibility rather than rule changes alone. “I think we’re all trying to do our best at marketing ourselves and marketing us as players and teams, as people,” she said. “I don’t really think they’re going to watch the forehands, backhands… a lot of people do love watching doubles, because a lot of the fans actually do play doubles themselves. That’s something that I think a lot of people don’t realize.”

On the ATP’s separate push to mic up doubles players during matches, Routliffe was enthusiastic, and volunteered her own team for the pilot if it were ever extended to the WTA. “I actually thought the content was amazing, super interesting. I watched every video that they put out, and I thought it was really cool,” she said.

We’re down to do it. I think if I was mic’d up, I would have to have one of those beep machines. We’d be happy to do it. If it’s available to us in the future, I think that we’d probably be one of the first teams to be okay with it.”

The pair, who reunited around Wimbledon after both found themselves separately looking for a partner for the rest of the season, said they planned to continue playing together through the hard-court and Asian swings.