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Grabber5.0 I'm the same, with a S7+ tablet, that requires double-tap, hmm... I also came to the Pixel from a long set of OP phones, and Win-Phones, all of which supported (required) double-tap to wake, so I'm a bit of a trained monkey, too ;-]
It definitely works better though, if you try to consciously single-tap; I suspect they're trying to prevent the palm-touch thing, that occurs when you're already touching another area of the phone (as I mentioned above).
I still think double-tap is the way to go, as a standard, and it tends to be more definitive on the whole, when it comes to the accidental secondary touches, but apparently Google doesn't agree (at least not since the Nexus 6P, pretty sure mine had dobule-tap back in the day, hmm...).