by Curtis » 07 Apr 2011, 09:01 I was in the runup to the French open in the second year of my campaign (1991), and my primary doubles team of Suire and Pierce was resting and training in preparation for Strasburg International, when I received a notification that Madrid was a mandatory singles tournament for both of them. The popup said that I could enter no other tournaments that week, which was not a problem, since I hadn't planned to enter any.
The popup for Suire gave me four choices, the first three being to enter singles, doubles, or both. Since this was a mandatory singles event, it seemed odd that I had the option to enter doubles only, but I selected to enter both. Then the popup for Pierce appeared and was the same, except that it defaulted to entering both, since she was Suire's doubles partner and Suire had already selected to enter both. So far it seemed good, except that when I arrived at the tournament, my doubles team was not entered. Since doubles is Suire's primary reason for existing, and also I wanted to stockpile some extra experience points for the French Open, I was surprised, puzzled and disappointed by this.
The next odd things that happened involved my second doubles team, which is Bouvier and Pitkowski. I delayed entering them in the low Challengers longer than I should have, because every time I tried, I got a popup that they probably weren't ranked highly enough to enter the qualifying tournaments, so they probably wouldn't be allowed to play at all. Finally a $21,000 French Challenger appeared on the schedule, so I entered, assuming they would get a wild card, both of them being French. Well, they didn't get the wild card, because they were the 3 seed! I had hoped they would do well in that tournament, so I'd entered them in a low Italian Challenger the following week, and got the same 'probably will not qualify' message. When they made it to the finals of the French Challenger, they earned the wild card for the Italian tournament. Again, it turned out they didn't need it, since they were the 1 seed! Annoying, but workable. Here is where things went very badly:
At the same time I entered the French and Italian low Challengers, I also entered the French Open and the mid-level Challenger in Furth, which is the week after the Open ends. Same messages about probably not qualifying, but for the Open I was again counting on wild cards, and I hoped I would do well enough in the Open to qualify for the Furth qualifier, which takes place during the second week of the Open. Note that at this point the girls were ranked just under 300 in singles and around 312 in doubles. Well, I did get wild cards into the main draw for the Open singles (I just wanted to get into the qualifier, but it turned out well), and was given the last seed in Open doubles qualifying. They qualified, and I was very happy.
The French Open exceeded my wildest dreams, with all four girls making it into the third round in singles. (Suire and Pierce were seeded 25 and 26, so they were no great surprise, though it was a bad surface for Suire.) Eventually Pitkowski met Pierce in the round of 16, and Pierce went on to win the tournament!
And the crowd went wild. 
Meanwhile, both doubles teams received excellent pairings after the first round. (Bouvier and Pitkowski each spent 40 points to get past what I think was the number 4 doubles seed in the first round, after which everyone had smooth sailing.) The second week arrived, and everyone was still playing. I got the popup asking whether I wanted Bouvier and Pitkowski to participate in doubles qualifying for the Furth tournament. Naturally, I said yes. Well, in the end, Bouvier and Pitkowski played Suire and Pierce in the doubles final AND BEAT THEM!!! At which point I received the notice that my qualifying in the Furth tournament had been cancelled. 
I was a bit stunned by that, but had some hope that they may have been allowed to participate in Furth anyway, but it was not to be. Despite there being a bye in the first round of the doubles field, my team was not allowed to participate. Apparently the tournament directors felt that an empty court would draw a larger audience than the French Open champions. This is a problem. Due to their Open win, Bouvier and Pitkowski rose from 300+ to approximately number 35 in the world, and they were in Furth anyway to play singles, but there was no mercy in the directors' black hearts.
So, I have recently experienced three problems with doubles: First, when a popup asks if you want to play doubles, and you say yes, you should be allowed to play.
Second, you shouldn't get a popup for singles or doubles that your ranking probably isn't high enough to enter a qualifier when in fact you are ranked well enough to be a (or the) top seed in the main draw.
Third, you should never EVER be barred from participating in a tournament because you were too busy participating in the finals (or semi-finals, really) of a much higher level tournament at the same time as the qualifying for the lower level tournament. Being the Open champion and being barred from a mid-Challenger is an extreme case, but really they should have received a wild card even if they were busy in the semi-finals of a high Challenger.
This game is being played with the 1.0g Mac build that you released at the end of January.
To make matters worse, when the tournament proper began, there were eight 'byes' in the first round, so she really shouldn't have had to go through qualifying at all.
