Britain's Patten targets number one doubles ranking
Britain's Henry Patten has set his sights on becoming the top-ranked doubles player in the world after winning his second Grand Slam title.Patten and Finnish partner Harri Heliovaara are now ranked three and four by the ATP following their epic men's doubles win over Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori in a late-night final at the Australian Open last weekend.El Salvador's Marcelo Arevalo and Mate Pavic of Croatia are currently joint number one, with 7,530 ranking points, compared with Patten's 7,075."The prize money in doubles is a lot less than the singles and sponsorship deals are a little bit harder to come by, so doing well at the Slams is the best thing you can do," Patten told BBC Look East."They're the biggest events for prize money and also for ranking points, so it seems like we're timing our runs quite well."The win pushes us up to three and four in the world - I can't believe I'm saying that - so I think we'll go for the number one pair in the world, I don't see why not."Patten and Heliovaara earned A$810,000 (£407,000) between them for their triumph in Melbourne - just over £200,000 each.
The match against Bolelli and Vavasorri lasted more than three hours and did not finish until 01.42 local time."I think it's probably the longest doubles match I've ever played. I had to go and ask my coach for a shot of espresso after the first set, which we lost in a really close tie-break, and that kind of set the tone for the rest of the match - it was a war of attrition," said Patten.The left-handed Englishman from Manningtree in Essex first played tennis at the age of five, and in 2022 won 10 titles on the ATP Challenger tour with fellow Briton Julian Cash.He teamed up with Heliovaara nine months ago and they have not looked back since winning their first tournament as a pair in Marrakech."It's amazing that it's happened so quickly - it feels like just the blink of an eye," said 28-year-old Patten, who served an ace to clinch victory in Melbourne."It's still a bit surreal. I don't know if that's the jetlag or just [that I] never imagined this would all happen."It was their second Grand Slam title, having also won at Wimbledon last summer, and he and Heliovaara will have a chance to add another at the French Open, which begins on 25 May."Next week we'll be in Dallas, playing on the ATP tour, then I'll have another week off, and then it's Doha, Dubai and straight back over to the States, so it's non-stop," Patten added.
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