By Erik Gudris | Saturday, July 11, 2026
Photo credit: Matthew Stockman/Getty
World No. 1 ATP Doubles Team Henry Patten and Harri Heliovaara capped off a stellar fortnight by winning their second Wimbledon doubles title as a team.
Yet Patten took the opportunity to share his thoughts on the state of the doubles game on the world’s most famous court.
The UK’s Patten and Finland’s Heliovaara earned their third career major doubles title after defeating El Salvador’s Marcelo Arevalo and Croatia’s Mate Pavic 7-6(4), 7-6 (3) backed by a thrilled Centre Court crowd.
During the trophy ceremony, the 30-year-old Patten took the opportunity in his speech to share his thoughts on the recent proposed changes to doubles on the ATP Tour.
“It would be remiss of me not to mention that the ATP Tour submitted proposals to cut some of the doubles, and I’m a strong believer we are here to grow the game,” Patten said.
“This is a fantastic example of the joy that doubles can bring. The crowd, I hope you enjoyed it.”
Those proposals, though not finalized, would cut the number of teams competing at ATP 1000 events to 16 and at smaller events to 8, while also reducing the prize money doubles teams could earn by 10 to 20%.
While some singles players, notably Reilly Opelka and Alexander Bublik have openly questioned why doubles continues to exist on the tour, Patten continues to advocate for doubles to thrive.
“I believe we should be growing opportunities in tennis for kids, whether they are doubles players, singles players, British, Finnish, from El Salvador or Croatia, wherever they are from, we should be growing the support instead of taking opportunities away.
“Thank you to Wimbledon for giving this platform to us for the two weeks. You are the best tournament in the world.”
Patten and Heliovaara are the first team to win multiple Wimbledon men’s doubles titles since the great Bob and Mike Bryan of the U.S. in 2011.
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Erik Gudris. Erik Gudris is a contributing writer to Tennis Now His tennis coverage and analysis has also appeared at USAToday.com, SI.com, Tennis Panorama News, and more.