Women’s Tennis Should be Best-of-Five
How long should tennis matches be? At the Grand Slam level, five sets. That’s the traditional answer, and all of the best matches I’ve seen have been five sets long. That’s long enough to be challenging, but not so long as to be ridiculous.
The “lesser” tournaments, e.g. not the Grand Slams or Davis Cup, are all best-of-three sets. Until recently the men’s year-end championships was best-of-five in its final match, but they changed that in 2008 (a bad move, in my opinion). A number of other tournaments also used to be best-of-three except for the final. It’s clear from this history that the longer format was and is considered appropriate for more important matches.
For Grand Slams, male tennis players switch over to best-of-five. But the female players do not, sticking with the best-of-three format. There’s really no reason for this apart from sexism.
Sexism, and the inconvenience of overturning the structures put in place by a history of sexism.
The tournaments don’t want to make such a shift because it would make scheduling much harder for them, since best-of-five matches take up more time. The female players don’t seem to be clamoring for it, which makes sense since it would be personally difficult for all of them.
It seems that basic fairness dictates that men and women should play the same format. I’m trying to think of other sports with similar gender splits. Women’s soccer doesn’t feature shorter halves—and if it did, I would be questioning that too.
There are some people who think that men’s matches should be best-of-three as well, but I think that would really be a terrible mistake, and suspect it of being driven by television advertising concerns—not by a desire to improve the sport.
Common arguments for sticking with best-of-three for women include:
- Women don’t have the endurance for long matches. How could this be true? Women run marathons and compete in plenty of sports that demand endurance.
- Longer women’s matches would be boring because most of them would just add an extra set of one-sidedness. Again, there’s no reason why this would be more true of women than men.
- Longer women’s matches would reward the “wrong” players. Sort of the inverse of the previous argument, this is the claim that poor playes who worked on their endurance would prosper under a best-of-five system. Even if true, it’s something that would quickly change, as more female players would focus on fitness—just as the men do now.
- Longer women’s matches would mean more injuries. This might be true, but again I think players would adjust. In any case, followed to its logical conclusion “injury reduction” would lead to one-set matches for both genders…
- Longer women’s matches would mean more bad tennis because most women’s tennis is low quality. This is a surprisingly common argument. Its inherent sexism should be apparent—regardless of what you think of the current state of women’s tennis.
- Longer women’s matches would wreak havoc with scheduling. This might be true, but so what? Lengthen the playing day, increase the number of courts, that’s just not an insurmountable problem.
All of the arguments against moving women’s Grand Slam matches to five sets are based on the idea that women are too “frail” to play that long, or that women‘s matches are somehow less worthy than men’s matches. Naked self-interest plays a part too (the tournaments don’t want to have to spend more money, and the female players currently against the idea don’t want to increase their workload.)
Making women’s matches best-of-five would promote the idea that their matches are on an equal footing as athletic endeavors with the men’s—an idea clearly in need of reinforcement. It would help puncture the idea that either gender requires “special treatment”—right now the men get more of the limelight, but on the other hand the women earn the same prize money for shorter matches, and I consider both imbalances to be unhealthy.
The signs aren’t too hopeful right now, but I’m hoping that at some point women’s tennis being best-of-three at Grand Slams becomes just one more bygone relic of a sexist past.
15 Mar 2010 at 08:27
Not only do I think women’s tennis should be moved to five-setters, I also think they should compete in the same tournaments, male against female. But I have been influenced in this by Judit Polgar’s behaviour in chess.
16 Mar 2010 at 14:30
I don’t think I can quite go that far… the strength gap between men and women is too great, and I really don’t think that the top female pros would be able to compete with even low-level male pros. I certainly think that they should be allowed to do so if they wished, but to merge the competitions in tennis would effectively kill women’s tennis.
That’s not true for all sports, of course, but I think it is for tennis.
05 Jul 2010 at 00:35
I completely agree that women’s grand slam matches should be best of five sets like the men’s. Otherwise women are really not playing grand slam tournaments while men are. What surprises me that none of the women seem to be arguing for this. I would think that feminists like Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova should be leading the campaign for this. As pointed out all the arguments for why women’s matches should not be best of five sets are sexist arguments that should be opposed by all feminists. And even feminists would not agree that women should get the same amount of money for doing less work than the men. The endurance argument is totally unsound. After women’s marathon was introduced in the Olympics, research showed that women actually have greater endurance than men. This should hardly be surprising as no man could undergo 15 or 20 or 25 hours of labor in childbirth, which women have done for centuries. What the research showed was that even though the best women runners could not run as fast as the best male runners, at the end of a marathon, the bodies of women were in much better shape than the bodies of men. Also the argument for lesser player winning if it went to five sets is also fallacious. Borg would not have won as many wimbledons as he did if it had not been best out of five sets. One year he was down two sets to zero and down 4 to 1 in an earlier round to Vijay Amritraj and he came back to win the match and the tournament. Even though as an Indian I may get some kick out of thinking that Borg was a lesser player than Amritraj, I am sure Vijay would say I am crazy and that Borg was infinitely better than him. Actually, I think that it would have been best out of five sets all along, then Chris Evert, Martina navratilova, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, Sarina Williams and Venus Williams would have won even more grandslams than they did since they were all much more fit than their competitors. This then would actually be a good argument against going to five sets, as the best of three sets is an equalizer, letting lesser players pull an upset. In this year’s Wimbledon for example, I think that Venus would have been able to come back and win in a five setter. But I think this would be a poor argument because the quality of tennis would be much better if it went to best of five sets. I think that Venus and Sarina should push for making it best of five sets for the benefit of women’s tennis. The argument that men are better players than women is also not a sound argument. Perhaps men ranked from 200 to 300 can consistently beat the top ten women, but this is like men running the marathon faster than women. Due to faster serve and more powerful strokes men may be able to beat women but it surely does not mean that they have greater skill than men. Enough for now.
Priyedarshi Jetli
30 Dec 2010 at 17:55
It is said that the ladies played 5 sets originally too; however, the marked it down to 3 because then (lawn tennis started in the 1870s) common etiquette demanded that ladies wear corsets in public (to maintain image) and they would often faint in course of the 5 set match.
Since they need no longer wear corsets, nor sleeves, nor ankle length skirts, why do they not change it back?
Instead of adding more sets, it is also possible to remove tiebreaks from the ladies’ matches altogether, that way sets would last longer if the competitors were competitive, and normal length if not.
Compared with the gentlemen’s game, why let an exciting and close set end in a tiebreak?
02 Jan 2011 at 04:05
Wow, I’d never heard the corsets story before, that’s fascinating (and another argument for making it best-of-five, if it’s true). Thanks!
19 Jan 2011 at 03:03
You can bring up all the statistics you want about marathon runners and endurance, but that’s comparing apples to oranges. If you think that Serena Williams REALLY has the endurance to last through a grueling five-set match like Rafa and Roger Federer had at Wimbledon, you really must be dreaming… or extremely feminist. If you look at the two players who have been at the top of the men and the women’s games in recent history, you have the Williams sisters and Nadal/Federer. The physique of Serena would have prevented her from becoming such a force in a five-set game. If you look at the conditioning, there’s really no comparison between her and the male counterparts.
Male versus female matches? You really cannot be serious. Put the top men against the top women and it wouldn’t even be fair. Truthfully, I hope that the women eventually do switch over to a five-set match just to see how it would affect the top players: would they be able to keep up with the additional sets over the course of a tournament?
The argument that Borg wouldn’t have won as many Wimbledons is complete and utter hogwash. He was down 2-0 in sets out of five. If you switch the number of sets to three, don’t you think the match would have played out in an entirely different way? Again, apples to oranges.
In closing, the men and women could never, and should never compete directly against each other. As it was mentioned earlier, the strength difference is too great, and not to mention the overall conditioning is better on the men’s side (sorry, ladies). If anyone honestly thinks that one of the Williams sisters would be able to withstand even Andy Roddick’s game, who is a career underachiever with great talent, you’re kidding yourself.
Why search for equality for the sexes in sports? Should Jenny Finch back up to 60 feet, 6 inches and see if she’ll be able to strike out Albert Pujols? How about bringing Joel Zumaya in to 43 feet and seeing how many people can hit his 102 MPH fastball from that range (P.S. that pitch would be moving at ~143 MPH)? The point is that most sports need different rules for the different sexes because of the disparity in height and size.
In the case of tennis, it’d be very interesting to see how some of the bulkier top women players would be able to fare with the addition of (a possible) two sets. I think a lot of people would be surprised with the winners of the women’s grand slams if that were made into a reality.
05 Sep 2011 at 10:43
I take the opposite view… ALL matches should be best of three sets, for men as well as women. Five set matches are boring for spectators, and taxing for players. We would see a much higher level of play from healthier competitors if men’s matches were three setters.
24 Jul 2012 at 04:34
tennis, though I would have thought that Martina Navratilova would have trained very hard. From the point of view of fitness, I would think that from the past, Margaret Court was as fit as Rod Laver, Chris Evert as fit as Jimmy Connors, Steffi Graf as fit as Andre Agassi. As for the Williams sisters I think Venus seems to be more fit thatn Serena, but Serena is deceptively fit, she could not have won after all she went through this year, including being in the hospital, if she were not fit. MMark may well be right that women do not train as hard, but this may be a case of putting the cart before the horse. If the matches were made three out of five, perhaps they would train harder. Further, there may be other reasons for why women do not train harder. To my knowledge, historically, Ivan Lendl was the one who began rigorous training in mens’ tennis with weights, and so on. Perhaps no such example is there in women’s aybe she is not as fit as Nadal, but then perhaps no one ever has been; but she is as fit or mor fit than most of the male players. I do agree that men’s tennis and women’s tennis should be treated as different sports. But even if we do that I think a good argument could be made for women’s tennis being best three our of five sets. One further point, it would be difficult to establish that the fittest, the ones who train the hardest, are always the best. Micahel Chang was perhaps more fit and trained harder than Sampras and Agassi, but he could not reach their excellence. There is after all more to the sport than just being physically fit. As for your reference to ‘bulkier women’ obviously referring to Serena, whereas Lindsay Davenport was much bulkier; I think I would throw back your reasoning in my example of Borg being two sets down, which you rightly pointed out was comparing apples to oranges; I would say let us make them 3 out of 5 and see if theese same women win. I think they would, it is not that marathon runners would be better tennis players, but better tennis players would win the tennis race if the distance were increased from half marathon to full marathon. On the contrary I believe that some of the semi finals losses that Serena had at her peak, especially to Capriati, she would not have had as she was definitely more fit than Jennifer at that time.
As to David’s assessment of boring, this is quite subjective. If we look at it only from the spectators’ point of view in terms of exciting and not maintaining the purity of the game, then we could even make it one set, or we could change other things like allowing only one serve or forcing the server to take the service return only as a volley. This would indeed make tennis ‘less boring’. My sense is that like in any sport, those who are real fans, enjoy the nuances of the sport. I was never in favour of the tie breaker, and I still think that it should be abolished, especially in the grand slams. Can you imgine a sudden death playoff in a baseball game that is tied at the end of 9 innings. Yes, it makes no sense. But baseball is much older than tennis and has resisted such a change. I think that the World Cup soccer matches that have gone to penalty kicks are an absolute cheat, they blemish the integrity of the sport. Would the Greatful Dead agree to a time limit to their concert. I am afraid that the finest things in life are what one might call ‘boring’ and that is what makes theme deeply meaningful. The longer something takes, the better it is, and we should all know this from some other part of life.
24 Jul 2012 at 04:42
In my last comment somehow the text got mixed up, it should be in the following order
MMark may well be right that women do not train as hard, but this may be a case of putting the cart before the horse. If the matches were made three out of five, perhaps they would train harder. Further, there may be other reasons for why women do not train harder. To my knowledge, historically, Ivan Lendl was the one who began rigorous training in mens’ tennis with weights, and so on. Perhaps no such example is there in women’s tennis, though I would have thought that Martina Navratilova would have trained very hard. From the point of view of fitness, I would think that from the past, Margaret Court was as fit as Rod Laver, Chris Evert as fit as Jimmy Connors, Steffi Graf as fit as Andre Agassi. As for the Williams sisters I think Venus seems to be more fit thatn Serena, but Serena is deceptively fit, she could not have won after all she went through this year, including being in the hospital, if she were not fit. .aybe she is not as fit as Nadal, but then perhaps no one ever has been; but she is as fit or mor fit than most of the male players I do agree that men’s tennis and women’s tennis should be treated as different sports. But even if we do that I think a good argument could be made for women’s tennis being best three our of five sets. One further point, it would be difficult to establish that the fittest, the ones who train the hardest, are always the best. Micahel Chang was perhaps more fit and trained harder than Sampras and Agassi, but he could not reach their excellence. There is after all more to the sport than just being physically fit. As for your reference to ‘bulkier women’ obviously referring to Serena, whereas Lindsay Davenport was much bulkier; I think I would throw back your reasoning in my example of Borg being two sets down, which you rightly pointed out was comparing apples to oranges; I would say let us make them 3 out of 5 and see if theese same women win. I think they would, it is not that marathon runners would be better tennis players, but better tennis players would win the tennis race if the distance were increased from half marathon to full marathon. On the contrary I believe that some of the semi finals losses that Serena had at her peak, especially to Capriati, she would not have had as she was definitely more fit than Jennifer at that time.
As to David’s assessment of boring, this is quite subjective. If we look at it only from the spectators’ point of view in terms of exciting and not maintaining the purity of the game, then we could even make it one set, or we could change other things like allowing only one serve or forcing the server to take the service return only as a volley. This would indeed make tennis ‘less boring’. My sense is that like in any sport, those who are real fans, enjoy the nuances of the sport. I was never in favour of the tie breaker, and I still think that it should be abolished, especially in the grand slams. Can you imgine a sudden death playoff in a baseball game that is tied at the end of 9 innings. Yes, it makes no sense. But baseball is much older than tennis and has resisted such a change. I think that the World Cup soccer matches that have gone to penalty kicks are an absolute cheat, they blemish the integrity of the sport. Would the Greatful Dead agree to a time limit to their concert. I am afraid that the finest things in life are what one might call ‘boring’ and that is what makes theme deeply meaningful. The longer something takes, the better it is, and we should all know this from some other part of life.