Former world No 1 tips US Open and Craig Tiley to reshape Grand Slam tennis
Rennae Stubbs believes that the US Open and United States Tennis Association CEO Craig Tiley are the most likely candidates to tweak the best-of-five Grand Slam format.
During and after this year’s US Open, debate has grown over reforming tennis, with some calling for best-of-three-set tennis at the majors.
Former British player John Lloyd is one such advocate, as concerns were raised about late-night finishes at Flushing Meadows, the worst of which was the 3.30am finish of Ben Shelton’s win over Carlos Alcaraz.
Previously, Serena Williams’ coach, Stubbs, has called for the fifth set of men’s tennis to be scrapped in favour of a 10-point tiebreak.
Weeks after Tennis Australia’s new CEO Andrew Abdo opened the door to ditching five-set matches, the Australian thinks both men and women should play five-setters from the quarter-finals on, partly because it might end the equal prize money debate.
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The former world No 1 women’s doubles player said on her podcast, “I want to see two sets all, fifth set, 10-point tiebreak. As [Andrea] Petkovic and Jason Goodall said, if you can’t distinguish yourself after four sets, let’s just play a 10-point tiebreak.
“I think from the quarter-finals on, best of five, with the fifth set being a 10-point tiebreak is the best way to go for men and women and then we can finally stop talking about ******* equal prize money.
“Because you don’t want a women’s match that is already three hours extended to five hours and then we extend even more into the early hours of every single Grand Slam.
“I don’t want to see the women playing best of five, I am tired of seeing the men play best of five and I am a tennis purist. I don’t know if the Australian Open are going to do it but if you had to guess, I think the US Open and Craig Tiley would be the first.”
Former National Rugby League CEO Andrew Abdo recently took over from Tiley and shortly after his arrival, he spoke about making tennis Australia’s most popular sport.
He said, “Maybe in the future, slams at the different rounds or at different lengths of duration, you know, maybe we’re not playing best of five all the way through, maybe the point scoring system changes.
“Maybe there are different permutations to how we engage and entertain audiences without losing the fabric, and what really makes the sport special. I think those are the questions that we need to explore and discover, and I think there’s a place for evolving that.”
Novak Djokovic has called for matches to be shorter, which may be out of self interest for the 39-year-old. Whether such reforms are coming remains to be seen.
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