“Weird” Idea – Tennis Now

While the tennis world continues to digest outgoing Australian Open CEO Craig Tiley’s proposal to introduce best-of-five set matches for ladies beginning on the quarterfinal stage of Grand Slams, World No. 2 Iga Swiatek has emerged as a number one voice of a skeptical locker room.

Here’s what Tiley stated final month:

“One of the things I’ve been saying now is that I think there should be three out of five sets for women. We should look at the last few matches — the quarters and the semis and the finals — and make the women’s side three out of five.

“So it’s something we should put on the agenda and start talking to the players about it because there’s some matches in those last rounds which would have been fascinating had they been three out of five sets.”

Six-time major champion Swiatek has been candid about the logistical and physical hurdles such a shift would create, calling it a “weird approach” in a modern landscape where most entertainment is trending toward shorter, faster formats. The Pole expressed serious doubts about whether the audience would actually embrace longer matches and, more pointedly, whether the players could “keep the quality for five sets.”

Swiatek grounded her argument in the reality of current training blocks, noting that “men are more physically strong and they can handle it for sure better,” while emphasizing that women have never practiced to sustain that level of intensity over four or five hours.

“I don’t know if we would be able to maintain the quality for five sets,” Swiatek said. “Well, that is a truth, like, males are extra bodily sturdy they usually can deal with it for certain higher. Also, now we have by no means practiced in a technique to put together for that, so we would wish to vary, I feel, our complete calendar, as a result of the Grand Slams could be so powerful that I do not assume we might truthfully have time to arrange for every other tournaments.

“I think it would change a lot. I don’t think it would change anything for good. I don’t know what’s the reason, honestly, for this. Do you know?”

This sentiment is echoed by fellow main champion Elena Rybakina, who highlighted the jarring nature of a mid-tournament format change, noting that beginning a Slam in a single format solely to stretch to a best-of-five format within the second week could be extremely tough to navigate.

“You start in one format, and then it gets longer, so it’s mentally also, to be ready to play so many sets if it goes to that point, I think it’s not easy,” she stated. “And of course physically, then you need to understand how you’re gonna feel. Even if you have this one day in between, it might not be enough, and then in the second week sometimes you play two days in a row.

“I think it’s a huge change, and I don’t think it might be interesting also for the people, because they maintain the level for so many sets, I think it’s going to be quite difficult.”

That leaves Sabalenka as the main advocate for best-of-five for the moment.

“Let’s do that,” she said. “I really feel like I’d in all probability have extra Grand Slams. I really feel like bodily I’m actually sturdy, and I’m fairly assured that my physique can deal with that. So let’s do it.”