{"id":767166,"date":"2026-09-11T10:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T10:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/767166\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T10:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T10:46:10","slug":"five-set-tennis-is-under-attack-killing-it-would-be-a-colossal-unforced-error-us-open-tennis-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/767166\/","title":{"rendered":"Five-set tennis is under attack. Killing it would be a colossal unforced error | US Open Tennis 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday night\u2019s quarter-final match between Ben Shelton and Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> had everything a US Open spectacle could ask for: huge stakes, knife-edge drama, top-shelf competition and an American hero who comes through in the end. The only fault to find was really the matter of time. The first ball wasn\u2019t struck until 11.05 in the evening, and Shelton\u2019s clinching ace didn\u2019t come until 3.33 in the morning \u2013 marking, after a total of 4hr 28min on court, the latest-ending US Open match by a whopping 43 minutes.<\/p>\n

Somewhat predictably, the discourse among media and fans following the late-night match has swiftly moved on from the USTA\u2019s misadventures in scheduling to a referendum on the five-set match and whether it should be put out to pasture. For the record: that would be a colossal unforced error.<\/p>\n

Five-setters aren\u2019t just intrinsic to the grand slam canon. They are a badge of honor in the men\u2019s game, confirmation that a player can and did indeed hack it in the big leagues. John Isner may not have won a major during his time on tour. But his capacity for grinding out marathon matches \u2013 not least the three-day, 11-hour epic<\/a> he played against Nicholas Mahut at Wimbledon in 2010 \u2013 is why he remains highly respected by peers and fans alike.<\/p>\n

Best-of-five is the exclusive framing device for the best matches in history and an imprimatur of the sport\u2019s most revered champions. (See, The Greatest Match Ever Played<\/a> or last year\u2019s French Open final<\/a>.) Even the losers are celebrated merely for having survived and played on to become part of the tale. \u201cPeople still remember this match but he didn\u2019t know if I was the winner,\u201d Mahut said<\/a> in 2015. \u201cSo, maybe, in 10 years people will think I won the match.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five-setters are the mother of sporting crucibles \u2013 a test of will, nerve and focus. That holds true as much for the men who play as their spectators. Much of what makes the experience of following tennis so affirming is the global group-watch sessions that take over social media anytime an Australian Open match goes the distance.<\/p>\n

Viewers who can\u2019t babysit the full marathon into the night \u2013 lest they risk sleeping through their morning alarms or, worse, cheering the exciting points too boisterously and rousing their house and neighbors \u2013 get to wake up and find the fifth set still raging as they\u2019re getting ready for work the next day. A skeptic might point to the Australian Open, perhaps more so than any other slam, as a prime reason to abolish the five-setter. But true tennis nerds see the Happy Slam for what it is: a rite of passage. In fact, if they don\u2019t seem surprised by the US Open\u2019s Melbourne hours, it\u2019s because Craig Tiley, formerly the CEO of Tennis<\/a> Australia, is now running the USTA.<\/p>\n

John Isner and Nicolas Mahut during their record-breaking 11-hour, five-minute match at Wimbledon in 2010, which Isner won 70-68 in the fifth set after three days of play. Photograph: Leo Mason\/Corbis\/Popperfoto\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Still, for all the honor and valor there is to be extracted from five-setters, especially as they pile up, there\u2019s no denying the matches exact a physical toll from players that has become harder to ignore as the pressure to maintain a hectic touring calendar puts them at increasing risk of missing tournaments from wear and tear. That tension between tradition and evolution has animated an existential debate around five-setters that has been simmering for years.<\/p>\n

Last month, incoming Tennis Australia CEO Andrew Abdo tossed out ideas for a shorter-form game. \u201cMaybe we\u2019re not playing best of five all the way through,\u201d Abdo said<\/a> at a Melbourne sports conference. \u201cMaybe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abdo\u2019s remarks \u2013 which come after Tiley, his predecessor, suggested women play five-set matches \u2013 might not have resonated if Novak Djokovic, the slam king who built his reputation on five-set matches, hadn\u2019t first proposed changes to the scoring system that would keep the five sets but dilute the number of games to \u201ckeep the matches within a two-hour window<\/a>\u201d. And even though the 24-time major champion was being somewhat facetious \u2013 he was specifically asked for an opinion that would inflame fans \u2013 it didn\u2019t stop John McEnroe, tennis\u2019 self-righteous conscience, from breaking out his gas canister. \u201cPeople\u2019s attention spans are shorter than ever,\u201d said McEnroe \u2013 famously, the five-set loser of an epic 1980 Wimbledon final canonized as the War of 18-16<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rafael Nadal lies on Centre Court after defeating Roger Federer in their epic five-set Wimbledon final in 2008. Photograph: Simon Bruty\/Sports Illustrated\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

But those voices, however prominent, have yet to reach a volume that drowns out five-set traditionalists. \u201cDo I love five setters? Absolutely not,\u201d Frances Tiafoe said after hanging on to beat fellow American Alex Michelsen in a five-set quarterfinal he surely would\u2019ve lost<\/a> if the scoring revolutionists had their way. \u201cWhen I\u2019m up two sets to love I would love to shake hands and go home. But it\u2019s tennis, man. I grew up watching incredible tennis, incredible five setters. Novak vs Rafa, Federer vs Rafa. Incredible five setters which go on for hours and hours. That is the history of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

The quarter-final between Shelton and Alcaraz wrote another chapter, one that gave Arthur Ashe Stadium the feel of a Queens dive after last call. Shelton, still woozy from outlasting the US Open\u2019s defending champion, beseeched his sister\u2019s employer, Morgan Stanley, to give her the day off from work. (She was due back by 6am.) As he and Alcaraz contested the final points, with Tuesday having turned into Wednesday, custodial workers could be seen and heard tidying up the stadium and grounds for the horde to come after sunrise. On social media, US Open patrons who hung on til the bitter end shared the outrageous surge pricing they encountered for rideshares back home (\u201cI could get a hotel, bro<\/a>\u201d) and posted videos of exhausted ballkids hustling back into the city before school starts \u201cin three hours<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

No one\u2019s suggesting the US Open needs a curfew. (That\u2019s Wimbledon\u2019s turf, after all.) There\u2019s a simple fix to the late-night match problem that doesn\u2019t involve fundamentally restructuring the way the men\u2019s game is played. The USTA could just move one of its primetime features to the world\u2019s 13th-largest tennis show court \u2013 Louis Armstrong Stadium, right next door to Ashe \u2013 and move the start times up to ensure play didn\u2019t extend much past midnight. The start of Shelton-Alcaraz was delayed by Jessica Pegula and Emma Navarro taking three sets to wrap up their quarter-final, which was itself delayed by the afternoon matches ahead of them going long. But that might mean missing out on the filthy lucre that Ashe generates from its doubled capacity and extravagant suites \u2013 and god forbid the USTA make slightly less money.<\/p>\n

Carlos Alcaraz in action during his five-set quarter-final defeat by Ben Shelton at the US Open. Photograph: Julian Finney\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The funny thing about all this panting to change tennis for its own good is that tennis has changed so much already. Electronic line calls, 10-point tiebreaks, on-court coaching, the serve clock \u2013 the hidebound sport has proven it can be tweaked for pace and entertainment without a cost to its core integrity.<\/p>\n

But what truly makes the talk about abolishing the five-setter so hard to hear, particularly from veterans of those wars, is the fundamental misunderstanding. In other sports, time has a negative correlation. Who among us hasn\u2019t been held hostage by the football game that lumbers on because the coach can\u2019t be bothered to take their timeouts home? Who among us hasn\u2019t been prisoner to a basketball game that would have ended in 30 seconds if it hadn\u2019t been for all the fouling?<\/p>\n

In tennis, a match that stretches on for hours and hours isn\u2019t a drag. It\u2019s an obvious marker of quality, an implied reason to tune in. And if engagement is the name of the game, the drama of a fifth act that holds the potential to maintain an audience, capture a new one and \u2013 in the case of the Shelton-Alcaraz quarter \u2013 extend the primetime viewing window on the West Coast \u2013 should be an incentive for those committed to growing the game to embrace the five-setter even tighter, not abolish it.<\/p>\n

One can just imagine the lines that would be drawn if the five-set format ever changed: the players who come after having to put up with cranky veterans of those five-set marathons of yesteryear prattling on about how the real legends were forged in my day. That\u2019s no kind of ending for a sport that has a great ending already.<\/p>\n