In tennis doubles, couples’ life cycles are often not long, writes Urheilu’s Sakari Lund.
Sakari Lund sports reporter
Harri Heliövaaran and by Lloyd Glasspool the almost unbelievably successful cooperation on the tennis doubles courts has most likely ended. There was a little room for interpretation in Heliövaara’s comments seen in the media, but on his blog he expressed it quite clearly “it is very possible that today’s match was the last match between me and Lloyd.”
Heliövaara and Glasspool tried playing together for the first time at the end of 2020. The ranking of both was then in the worse side of 100. The collaboration felt good, so almost immediately at the beginning of 2021, the two started playing together regularly.
The first ATP tournament win came right away in March 2021, but the real super phase started in May 2022 and lasted until the end of that year. The beginning of the super phase can be considered the Masters tournament in Rome, where Heliövaara and Glasspool, who came from the reserve position, flew from their home countries in the morning and beat the world’s number one pair in the afternoon.
From then on, the Finnish-British duo went far in almost all of their tournaments throughout the rest of the year and beat almost all the best couples in the world. The season culminated in a semi-final spot in the ATP final tournament for the best eight pairs of the year. Glasspool’s passes were the best in the world, as were Heliövaara’s returns and online play. At best, everything seemed to work out for both of them.
Even at the beginning of this year, the results were at least moderate. While many of last year’s points were still valid, Heliövaara rose as high as seventh in the world list in June. At the same time, however, something started to happen. Heliövaara writes very honestly and analytically in his blog:
“I can’t point to any specific moment when the scale started to swing in the wrong direction, but during the late spring, summer and autumn, something has been lost in our game. Expectations changed to pressure and a sense of coercion. We kept the energy up on the field, but it had to be done half-heartedly every time. Gaming was no longer enjoyable. At best, you can enjoy the pressure, now it mostly discourages me.”
The results recently have remained modest. Heliövaara’s ranking is now 30. In the summer, Heliövaara took a break from matches due to the birth of her second child. It’s hard to say how much the break affected. However, the negative cycle may have already started earlier.
Off the field, the relationship between the duo was fine, but on the field, everything no longer worked as before:
“That unconditional trust and desire to support others is slowly starting to falter. Heads droop one by one instead of being able to hold each other’s heads up. We are no longer a perfect team.”
That often seems to be the case in doubles. Life cycles of couples are often not very long. Some couples do really well for a while, but then things start to fail. Will there be some kind of boredom or what is it all about, but the doubles elite change pairs at regular intervals. Let’s make “new divisions”.
Heliövaara himself stated that the three-year period could hardly have gone better with anyone else, but now it was time to look for new winds. Heliövaara also saw that things were going well on other fronts. In mixed doubles, he won the US Open championship and in the Davis Cup, he went to the top eight with the Finnish team. But with Glasspool, the result didn’t come anymore.
One strong positive aspect of playing with Glasspool was that the pair got the support of the English Tennis Association and their iron coaching expertise. It will be gone now – unless the new pair is from Britain.
Of course, it will be interesting to see how to proceed from here. Who will be Heliövaara’s new regular couple? He is supposed to play in Stockholm next Patrik Niklas-Salminen with and in Basel Mate Pavic with.
A regular couple is in search. Could it be Pavic, the Croatian former world number one player? Pavic’s collaboration by Nikola Mektic with ended at Wimbledon and since then Pavic has changed pairs almost every week. The search is underway there as well. Of course, there are many other options.
Heliövaara, who once ended his career and after a break had a wonderful doubles trip, is starting a new phase in his career.