A three-day reversal
The Australian Open settled an argument it had started itself. In a post published on Thursday, the tournament confirmed that men’s matches will continue to be played over best-of-five sets.
“While innovation is part of the AO’s DNA, five-set tennis is here to stay,” the statement read. “We’ll reveal more on what’s coming to AO 2027 soon.”
The clarification followed comments made on Monday by Andrew Abdo, the new Tennis Australia chief executive, at the SportNXT leadership summit. “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. “Maybe the point-scoring system changes.” Three days later, the tournament itself has drawn a line under the idea.
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Why the format keeps coming up
The four majors are the only events on the men’s calendar that still use best-of-five. Everything else, from Masters 1000 tournaments to the ATP Finals, moved to best-of-three long ago, which leaves the Slams carrying a format nothing else on tour has to schedule around.
Broadcasters have been pushing at the edges of that for years. The comparison reached for most often is Major League Baseball, which cut dead time with a pitch clock rather than shortening games outright. Novak Djokovic has offered his own version for tennis, proposing sets decided at four games instead of six.
This year’s US Open has handed both camps ammunition. Close to 30 matches in New York have gone the distance. The one everybody points to is Ben Shelton’s quarter-final win over Carlos Alcaraz on Tuesday, four hours and 28 minutes that finished just after 3:30 a.m. and became the latest ending in the tournament’s history.
The players are split, and honest about it
Frances Tiafoe, who has played his share of them, made no attempt to pretend otherwise.
“Do I love five-setters? Absolutely not,” the American 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.”
Melbourne has promised more detail on its 2027 edition. Whatever changes, the match length is no longer part of the conversation.
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