Remembering former ATP Tour President Matt Doyle

Former ATP Tour President Matt Doyle, who has died at 70, was a Californian, born in Redwood City, but a heavy tint of Shamrock Green flowed through his veins.

Multi-talented is often an overused term but it was a modest way to describe this hugely popular figure who presided over the formation of the new ATP Tour when it was founded under CEO Hamilton Jordan’s leadership in 1989. An ATP singles title winner in Cologne in 1983, a year after reaching the last 16 of the US Open, Matt was already a man of diversity when he arrived on the Tour. While earning an economics degree at Yale University, this large, imposing athlete had given up basketball when he discovered he couldn’t jump and so turned to golf where his natural swing made him No. 1 at Yale. Along with tennis, Doyle became an expert golf commentator for the Irish network RTE when he stopped playing.

By then, he had become Mr. Tennis in Ireland, both as a player and coach. His ancestry had made it easy for him to qualify to play for Ireland and, in partnership with another talented Irish player of the time, Sean Sorensen, the pair took Ireland into the Davis Cup World Group after a dramatic win over Switzerland in 1982. Enjoying what is known as the luck of the Irish, they drew the United States for their first taste of the big time and who should show up at the RDS Arena in Dublin but John McEnroe, whose family roots are as Irish as they come. No amount of luck was going to enable Doyle to beat the rapturously acclaimed New Yorker, but Doyle’s big serve kept him in the match for a while before going down 9-7, 6-3, 6-3. In the first rubber of the tie, Doyle had been able to claim a World Group victory by beating Eliot Teltscher 6-3, 6-4. 6-4.

If lack of mobility restricted his prowess as a player, it never interfered with the tactical expertise he brought to the game and Mats Wilander was just the man to recognize that fact. Even though it was as a physical trainer that Doyle was invited to join Wilander’s team in 1987, Mats was quick to recognize the technical tip Matt offered him, as he related when we spoke from the Swede’s Sun Valley, Idaho, home.

“Hit your forehand harder, Matt told me,” said Wilander. “I told him my forehand was very solid and I rarely missed. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘so hit it harder!’ He said the same thing about my first serve. Basically he was telling me not to worry about making a few more mistakes. It worked.” 

So much so that Wilander, who had won Roland Garros as a teenager in 1982, cleaned up the Australian Open, Roland Garros and US Open titles in 1988 with Doyle in his box. The ability to hit the ball harder was linked to Doyle’s strengthening program which, Mats recalls, still wincing at the memory, was based on what he calls incentives. “Do 500 push ups and you can have a beer this evening!” he recalled Doyle offering. “It was painful but it got me fit!”

Earlier in his career, Doyle had played the Satellite Circuit in France and had become friends with another Swedish star, Joakim Nystrom. It was about the time that a hyper-charged Irish personality called John O’Shea was starting his charity GOAL, which entailed driving trucks around Africa and other impoverished places to deliver food. Being a tennis fan, O’Shea did not hesitate to draw on the generosity of players like Wilander, McEnroe, Nystrom, Peter Fleming and Pat Cash, all of whom willingly became involved in a completely insane idea organized by Doyle — a boxing exhibition! Although it is hard to find any reference to it on the web, I can certify that it happened because I was there.

To get tennis pros into a boxing ring is an unlikely event in itself but this actually took place in Dublin in 1989 the week before Wimbledon! Wilander agrees that it was not the best way to prepare for a Grand Slam, “but Matt and John O’Shea were very persuasive people and it was for a good cause.”

There was a gentleman’s agreement that no one would go for a KO but that did not stop McEnroe punching Wilander in the face. “I was a bit surprised,” admitted Mats, “but I just concentrated on pummeling John in the ribs!”

There was, needless to say, a great Irish party that evening with Matt Doyle the perfect, gregarious host. The ATP Tour has lost a great leader, a wonderful personality and one of those people one feels privileged to have known. R.I.P. might be a tough ask for Matt but we wish him well as he strums his Irish Harp.