Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul are a top ATP doubles team

Their partnership is a long time in the making.

Before becoming one of the ATP Tour’s established doubles teams, Doumbia played college tennis at the University of Georgia. His eventual route into professional doubles was anything but conventional.

“I was drinking and partying like every single day…had two or three job offers to work in finance in the US,” Doumbia said. “Okay f*ck it, I’m going back to France, I was ten kilos heavier. After like two or three years, I won a Challenger in Pune.”

For Doumbia, continuing to play was not primarily about chasing money or even a particular ranking.

“I didn’t care about the money,” Doumbia said. “For me, it’s about like having fun and playing tennis.”

Then came a conversation that would ultimately change two careers. Reboul was contemplating walking away from the sport. Doumbia encouraged his friend to keep going, and the two eventually faced a choice: either Reboul would quit, or they would try doubles together.

Doumbia had one condition.

“‘If we start doubles together, we finish doubles together,’” he told him.

Six years later, they are still together.

“We always play together. Since six years, we play every week together. We practice together. We live in the same place. We see each other almost every day during the year,” Doumbia said. “I think people love to see this kind of relationship every time we play.”

What feels ordinary to them can look remarkable from the outside.

“They say, your chemistry is amazing,” Doumbia said. “Sometimes we don’t see it because we always play together. But they say, we are so surprised to see that.”

That chemistry does not mean the two are alike. In fact, much of the appeal comes from just how different they are.

“Same outfits, very different game style, very different mindsets, very different characters,” Doumbia said.

On court, Reboul is often the louder presence.

“I’m screaming everywhere, running everywhere,” Reboul said.

“You are a more strategic guy,” he added of Doumbia. “People love to watch both of us. I think people like that.”

The contrast works because neither is trying to manufacture it.

“The authenticity also,” Reboul said. “We are very natural. We never fake.”

Six years together also means six years of disagreements, frustrations and the occasional fight.

“We have a couple of relationships, so sometimes we fight a lot,” Reboul said. “Last week we played the final in Sweden, and we had a big fight the day before, but I think that’s how it works and how you improve in the relationship.”

The disagreements, he said, have ultimately strengthened rather than weakened the partnership.

“Sometimes you do some mistakes, some bad things, but then you learn, and then the relationship is growing, and you get to know each other even better after years and years,” Reboul said. “So we keep enjoying it even more than before. So I think that’s the most important. Our relationship is more important than the tennis.”

Doumbia sees it similarly.

“I feel like it comes naturally with us. It’s like a friendship,” he said.

And apparently, retirement might not even be enough to separate them.

“I mean, after tennis, maybe we do something else,” Doumbia said. “We can play padel together or something.”

Reboul was less immediately convinced.

“You don’t want to play with me?” Doumbia asked.

“I don’t know,” Reboul replied.

“If you’re good enough, yeah, maybe,” Doumbia said. “No, we can play padel, and if we don’t make it in padel, we can go to an easier sport like pickleball or something.”

The partnership is immediately visible before a ball is struck.

Doumbia and Reboul routinely arrive in matching ASICS outfits, creating a cohesive visual identity that feels more like a traditional team than two individual players temporarily sharing a side of the court.

It is deliberate.

“I feel like the fact of playing together, having an identity as a team, switching partners, like you said, wearing the same outfit, I feel like this is a way to draw fans to the sport,” Doumbia said.

For a doubles discipline trying to turn spectators into fans of specific teams rather than simply tennis fans watching whichever pairing happens to be playing, that distinction matters.

“I feel like people need to identify themselves to some players, and we’re trying to do that,” Doumbia said. “We have good chemistry on court.”

The pair have become sufficiently recognizable that when other doubles players are asked which teams are doing the best job of entertaining and connecting with audiences, Doumbia and Reboul’s names come up.

They have a theory about why.

“I feel like it’s a bit different with us because we are such good friends, of course,” Doumbia said. “We do so many things together. We have this relationship which is a bit special.”

But again, they return to the differences between them.

“We are very different,” Doumbia said. “I think we are pretty friendly. We get along with everyone, which is nice. But we don’t force it. This is the way we are. Same outfits, very different game style, very different mindsets, very different characters.”

Those differences have become part of the product.

“I feel like we have a good chemistry and we are very different players,” Doumbia said. “Maybe this is why some doubles players like us as well. Because we bring something different. We are having fun. We are enjoying it. This is the most important thing as well.”

Their approach arrives at a pivotal time.

As conversations continue about the place of doubles within professional tennis, Doumbia and Reboul do not speak like players waiting for someone else to solve the problem.

“We’re trying to understand what the tournament wants, what the ATP wants,” Doumbia said. “We’re not stuck like we have to save doubles.”

Instead, they are asking what doubles players themselves can do differently.

“We are more thinking long-term like how can we improve the product,” Doumbia said. “It’s a lot of self-reflection as well. How can we do better as double players to attract more people to the game? How can we improve our social media, the fan base? This is more like an open conversation.”

That framing is important. Doumbia does not view the debate as an attack.

“We don’t see it as they want to take our jobs out,” he said. “It’s more like a learning curve and a learning process.”

And the pair say the support they hear directly from spectators gives them reason to believe there remains an appetite for doubles.

“Also, many people, when we come to the tournament, the days before we’re practicing, many people come to us,” Doumbia said. “We love to watch doubles, guys. We want you to play for more years.”

“We appreciate also the support of a lot of people,” Reboul added. “We feel that a lot of people try to support us. When you see the doubles this week, for example, it’s not always full, but there’s many people coming to watch the doubles. To feel that they enjoy it is always nice.”

If doubles needs personalities and storylines, Doumbia and Reboul are willing to provide both.

Their social-media presence is an extension of the same dynamic seen on court — and, predictably, they disagree about who does it better.

“With social media, first of all, we like it,” Doumbia said, before pointing to Reboul. “Especially him. He loves social media. Do I agree with the content? I think my content is better.”

“I like my Instagram better,” Doumbia continued. “I feel like my Instagram is more classy. His is more foolish.”

“Having fun. Clownish,” Reboul said. “It’s our personality on the court. I scream on my video. I love that. That’s the way we are as well.”

The humor masks a broader idea about how professional doubles can market itself. Their goal is not to invent personas for the internet. It is to give fans access to personalities and stories they may not otherwise see.

“About the content, I don’t know. What do we really do? We try to show the way we are,” Doumbia said. “This is what we do. I think some people like it. Some people don’t really like it.”

That includes allowing fans to see the rivalries and tensions that naturally develop on tour.

Discussing one social-media video involving Mate Pavić, Doumbia made clear there was no manufactured feud.

“Pavic, nothing against him. We like him. If the guy doesn’t say hi, he doesn’t say hi. Now he’s being a nice guy and we get along,” Doumbia said. “Of course, if the guy screams in my face for 20 seconds after every match, I’m going to hold a bit of a grudge.”

For Doumbia, those details matter because they give audiences a reason to care about what happens when the match begins.

“I feel like fans like that,” he said. “As a fan, for example, I like that. During the World Cup, I like as much the inside stories than watching what happens in the field. I was thinking maybe we can give this to the fans as well and share the experience.”

For now, the immediate challenge is tennis.

The transition into the North American hard-court season came after a particularly abrupt sequence of surfaces: Wimbledon on grass, Sweden on clay and then a return to hard courts. World Tennis Magazine spoke with the team at the Mubadala DC Open in the nation’s capital.

“Yeah, we get used to changing the surface all the time because we played Wimbledon three weeks ago, then we went to Sweden where we played on clay court, and now the first tournament on hard court, so it’s never easy to adjust,” Reboul said. “We had maybe five or six days of preparation, but I think we did pretty well, and we get used to changing conditions.”

The adjustment comes alongside the distinctive energy of playing in the United States, where the pair say doubles crowds have become an important source of support.

“Yeah, honestly, first we love to play in the US. There’s always a good vibe in a tournament, so many people. They love doubles also, so it’s very nice,” Reboul said.

“We know that every match is crowded with a lot of people. We have a lot of support now,” he continued. “We played many years in the same tournament, so now we have people that support us a lot.”

In an early hard-court test, they had to navigate difficult conditions as well as their opponents.

“It was a pretty tough match, tough conditions, a bit windy,” Reboul said. “I think we did a great job, very focused, very solid, so we’re very happy with the win.”

The crowd hears them, too. Doumbia and Reboul are not a team inclined to hide their emotion, and the energy that comes from the court has increasingly become part of their identity.

That identity — matching clothes, contrasting personalities, arguments, jokes, screams and all — could offer one answer to the larger question confronting doubles.

The future of the discipline may depend partly on whether fans can become invested not merely in matches, but in teams. Whether they know who the players are, understand their relationships and rivalries and have reasons to follow them from tournament to tournament.

Doumbia and Reboul have spent six years building exactly that.

“We always play together,” Doumbia said. “Since six years, we play every week together.”

For a partnership that began with a promise to finish doubles together, the future extends beyond the next match, the next hard-court tournament or even tennis itself.

“I mean, after tennis, maybe we do something else,” Reboul joked to his partner. “We can play padel together or something.”

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