Washington 2024 Doubles Trial Recap | ATP Tour

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Reliving Mic’d Up: A Look Back at a Historic Invention in Washington

Heliovaara, Murray discuss rebranding

August 05, 2024

Sebastian Korda lifted the Mubadala Citi DC Open trophy on Sunday evening with the biggest title of his career, marking the end of a record-breaking week for the American.

The 24-year-old claimed his first ATP 500 title, joining father Petr Korda on the list of champions of the event. But he also became one of the first four ATP Tour players to wear a live microphone during a match. The innovation was part of the 2024 ATP Tour Doubles Trial.

Korda, doubles partner Alex Michelsen, Harri Heliovaara and Jamie Murray all took part. Heliovaara, who won the Wimbledon doubles title with Henry Patten last month, became the first player to wear a live microphone in his first round match.

The Finn also wore down in his second round match, a close loss to Patten. Heliovaara explained that he is always happy to do his best to promote the two players and players, so it was an easy decision to participate when he felt comfortable with the equipment.

“I think we need more personality, more stars in the doubles part of the game and microphones are a great way to facilitate that on the court. I felt very comfortable with the microphone, it didn’t bother me at all, the technology. I didn’t have to think about anything if I said something stupid or not,” said Heliovaara. “I’m very open about my tennis career so I felt comfortable wearing the microphone.”

After watching the case for a week, the 35-year-old said he hopes that in the future there will be more incidents of colleagues wearing microphones. In Washington, Korda and Michelsen did it twice.

“I think we’ll have a lot of discussions that way, but we’ve had a few games where we’ve been both members of the same team and I think that’s worked really well.” It was nice to hear,” said Heliovaara. “The other individual guys playing like Korda, Michelsen, I think that was very interesting to me. A lot of talking, a lot of jokes, sometimes very bad, but it’s a very good understanding for the fans and I hope that this research will continue.”

Murray lost his opening match alongside Michael Venus, but he was happy that he took part in the test and like Heliovaara, he had no problems wearing the technology.

“I think it was a great innovation,” Murray said. “I think it’s exciting for the fans to see the connection in the team, the chemistry. I think that’s a good thing to convey to the viewers at home.

“I think that if there is more time between points, the broadcasters will benefit more from it because the players will have more time to communicate so that they don’t just sing the games and leave. There will be proper communication about rescuing your partner, talking about what’s going on in the game, the ebbs and flows of the game, that kind of stuff. “

At the end of the week, when Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow won the title, Tournament Chairman Mark Ein made it clear that he informed the crowd about the offense.

“This was the first tournament where we put mics on doubles players. “So when you watch it on TV, or watch the broadcast, you can listen to the players talking to each other,” said Ein. “We have seen it in other games. I think it’s an innovation that I hope will be discovered throughout the journey. It puts the fans on the field in a way that I don’t think anything else does. So I want to thank the players and the ATP tour for sponsoring and supporting that program.”