All eyes on Moreton Morrell as World Doubles Championship pairs announced
Riviere and Chisholm attempt to win a record-equalling sixth title
Camden Riviere and Tim Chisholm will attempt to defend their World Doubles Championship crown for a joint-record sixth time as a pair, following the announcement of the draw by the IRTPA on Friday for the event to be held at the Moreton Morrell Tennis Court Club in April 2026.
The event will be just the fourth time that the World Doubles Championship has been held in the UK, with the most recent UK edition taking place at Prested Hall in 2017. It will also be the third edition to use the reduced four-team format introduced in Bordeaux in 2022, and it will feature exactly the same pairings for the third edition in a row.
Teams are entered according to their combined World Doubles ranking, with points accumulated from results at major tournaments over the past three years. The draw is limited to the top four teams, with the final opportunity to earn ranking points having occurred at the recent British Open.
Camden Riviere and Tim Chisholm enter as defending champions, first seeds, and strong favourites, with an aggregate of 135,148 points. They have held the title together continuously since their first victory at Tuxedo in 2015 and have won the last five editions. Chisholm also holds one additional title from the inaugural edition in 2001, when he partnered with Julian Snow.
Should they win, they would equal Robert Fahey and Steve Virgona with six World titles as a pair, while Chisholm would become the most prolific player in the history of the event. When playing together, they have never failed to reach a World Championship final, finishing as runners-up only in Boston in 2007 and Paris in 2013. Indeed, Paris marked the last time they lost a match as a pair, although they have occasionally been tested — most notably when forced to overturn a 0–4 deficit against Robert Fahey and Ricardo Smith at the 2017 World Championship.
Since the last World Championships, they have played just two tournaments together, winning both: the 2024 British Open, where they lost only three games in the final against Nick Howell and Leon Smart, and the 2025 US Open, where they defeated John Lumley and Steve Virgona in four sets.
Lumley and Virgona remain their strongest challengers, entering as second seeds with an aggregate of 118,487 points. The pair reached the last two finals together in Bordeaux and Chicago and will look to go one better at Moreton Morrell. Although they won just two sets in each of those finals, they have consistently shown they can push Riviere and Chisholm hard — extending them to five sets in both the 2023 and 2024 US Open finals, and to four in the 2025 US Open final.
That US Open remains the only event the pair has contested together since the last World Championship. Both players, however, arrive in strong singles form, with Virgona winning the French Open in September and Lumley claiming the British Open in November. If they are to challenge for the title, they will need to demonstrate that their styles can once again gel effectively.
Robert Fahey and Nick Howell enter as third seeds with an aggregate of 111,340 points and will face Lumley and Virgona in the semi-finals. The pair reached the final in 2019 but have fallen victim to Lumley and Virgona at the semi-final stage in both 2022 and 2024, giving them plenty to prove in the rematch. Since the last edition, they have lost to Lumley and Virgona in the 2025 US Open semi-final in four sets, and to Lumley and Vaughan Hamilton in the 2025 British Open final in five.
Should they reach the final, their form against Riviere and Chisholm is uncertain, having not faced them since 2023. Both players may benefit from the shorter programme compared to an Open draw, but they will need to strike the ball cleanly if they are to make an impact, particularly after their disappointment at the British Open.
Ben Taylor-Matthews and Bryn Sayers complete the draw as fourth seeds with an aggregate of 68,164 points. Despite Sayers being ranked world number ten, their combined total narrowly surpassed the next-best available pairing of Robert Shenkman and Leon Smart, who accumulated just 48,268 points. They will once again meet Riviere and Chisholm in the semi-finals for the third consecutive edition and will again start as underdogs, having won just one set from eleven against the reigning champions.
In their only outing since the last edition — at the 2025 British Open — they scraped through a five-set encounter against Levi Gale and Lewis Williams before losing in four sets to Fahey and Howell. Given that this victory was their only match win as a pair since 2023 — a period that also included a US Open quarter-final defeat to Shenkman and Darren Long — they face an uphill task if they are to progress.
The event marks a return of top-level tennis to Moreton Morrell for the first time in nearly 17 years. The last time a field of comparable strength appeared on the Warwickshire court was at the 2009 Moreton Morrell pro-am, which featured Fahey, Virgona, Riviere and Sayers, and before that the 2005 VetCell World Tournament, featuring Fahey and Virgona. It will also be the first major tournament played on the newly reinstalled floor, meaning all players will need to adjust to the conditions with no one able to claim a home-court advantage.
Play begins on Wednesday, 22 April, with the first four sets of each semi-final scheduled for that day and the remaining sets on Thursday, 23 April. The final will follow the same format, with the first four sets played on Saturday, 25 April and the remainder on Sunday, 26 April. An accompanying amateur doubles tournament and American squash tennis event will run alongside the championship, concluding with a gala dinner at Moreton Hall on Saturday evening. Spectator tickets are available for purchase at www.mmtcc.org/wdc2026.