The Australian Open has confirmed it won’t be ditching best-of-five sets after new Tennis Australia boss Andrew Abdo made comments suggesting the change could be on the table.
Abdo, the former CEO of the NRL, caused a stir this week when he flagged potential changes to tennis’ format and scoring systems in wide-ranging comments about the need for the sport to evolve and attract new audiences.
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“If you want to maximise your commercial outcome, we’re in the entertainment game, right?,” he said at the Sport NXT conference.
“And sport is entertainment. And clearly there’s unbelievable athleticism involved with the sport at that level. But the rules and the format and the product has to evolve.
“And so a short-form version of that, who knows?
“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.
“If you listen to the purists, they’ll say, ‘don’t touch that’.
“But actually … if you look at sports around the world, if you’re not thinking about that product in a way that’s contemporary, in a way that’s going to connect with young people, then I think you’re going to be left behind.”
But on Thursday the Australian Open’s official social media account posted: “While innovation is part of the AO’s DNA, five-set tennis is here to stay.
“We’ll reveal more on what’s coming to AO 2027 soon.”
Tennis fans quickly put two and two together and realised the post was an attempt to clarify Abdo’s comments, which had turned into something of a “PR disaster”.
Outgoing Tennis Australia boss and Australian Open tournament director Craig Tiley had previously flagged potential changes to the format, including best-of-five matches in the women’s draw from the quarterfinal stage onwards.
The prospect of doing away with five-set matches at grand slams has reared its head with several US Open matches finishing in the early hours in New York, notably Ben Shelton’s epic win over Carlos Alcaraz that went the distance and finished at 3am.
Similar late-night finishes in Melbourne have prompted discussion about striking the best balance with the schedule of matches at grand slams.
The Davis Cup ditched best-of-five sets in recent years, tennis at the Olympic Games is best of three sets, as is all ATP and WTA tour events.
Four-time grand slam champion Jim Courier said ditching advantage points on deuce games would be a potentially less drastic option that could help shorten matches.
“I mean, I think eventually we are going to have to evolve, and I think the first little move forward will probably and should be, let’s go to no ad scoring, which will shrink the length of matches somewhat,” Courier told the Tennis Channel.
American Frances Tiafoe, a semi-finalist at the US Open, said he was “100 per cent” in favour of best-of-five sets at grand slams.
“For the men’s we should stick to three out of five,” Tiafoe said.
“I don’t know where the conversation is going, what people are leaning to. Everyone is going to have an opinion.
“We’ve seen so many epics in five-setters. Do I love five-setters? Absolutely not. 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.
“I grew up watching so many incredible five-setters. Novak-Rafa, Federer-Rafa, epic five-setters that go on for hours and hours. That’s the history of the game.
“You do that, I feel like your slam doesn’t mean as much personally if you get it done in a two-out-of-three format.”
The Australian Open has become renowned for its innovation including making an event out of the qualifying for the main draw and the $1 million one-point slam, which was a huge hit this year.
The tournament has announced there will be a cap on the amount of daily ground passes available to ensure a more comfortable fan experience in light of countless attendance records taking Melbourne Park’s infrastructure to capacity.
“I think in five years’ time, the AO will be the biggest, most successful slam on the planet, and tennis will be the number one played and most popular sport in this country,” Abdo said.