The Australian Open is committing itself to the five-set format for men’s Grand Slam matches just days after its CEO suggested that the longer format might not be in use for all rounds of future tournaments.
On its social media accounts Thursday, the Australian Open renewed its commitment to a best-of-five-set requirement for the men’s tournament.
“While innovation is part of the AO’s DNA, five-set tennis is here to stay,” the Australian Open’s statement read. “We’ll reveal more on what’s coming to AO 2027 soon.”
The four Grand Slam events — the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open — .are the only four tournaments which use the best-of-five-set match format on the men’s side.
The future of five-set matches was put into question by new Tennis Australia CEO Andrew Abdo on Monday.
“Maybe in the future, Slams at different rounds or at different lengths of duration, maybe we’re not playing best-of-five all the way through,” Abdo said at sports leadership summit SportNXT in Australia. “Maybe the point-scoring system changes.”
Like Major League Baseball did in recent years with the advent of the pitch clock, discussions have taken place on how to shorten the court time of some grand slam matches for the sake of audience engagement. Novak Djokovic has suggested sets that are won at four games instead of six.
There have been nearly 30 matches that have gone five sets at this year’s U.S. Open. One of the more arresting duels to go the distance was Ben Shelton’s quarterfinal victory over Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz on Tuesday. But that match went 4 hours, 28 minutes and went later than any match in U.S. Open history, finishing just past 3:30 a.m. local time.
“Do I love five-setters? Absolutely not,” American Frances Tiafoe said. “There’s a lot of times where I’m up two sets to love, I would love to shake hands and go home. But it’s tennis, man.”
–Field Level Media
