Elena Rybakina has finally given her verdict on what she thinks about women playing best of five set matches at major tournaments.
Rybakina won the Australian Open title for the first time last month, after beating Aryna Sabalenka in a three set final.
During this Australian Open, tournament director Craig Tiley proposed the idea of women playing best of five sets from the quarterfinals at next year’s tournament.
These comments have split opinion, with the likes of Coco Gauff responding to Tiley’s idea, and now Rybakina has given her view on the situation.
Elena Rybakina gives her verdict on playing best of five sets
Rybakina beat Qinwen Zheng, 4-6 6-3 7-5, to reach the quarterfinals of the Qatar Open in her first tournament since winning the Australian Open.
In her post-match press conference after beating Zheng, Rybakina was asked about whether she would want women to play best of five set matches.
Rybakina stated that she would prefer to stick to playing best of three set matches, suggesting that she did not think the quality of tennis would benefit from being expanded to the longer format.
“I would like to stick to three sets,” responded Rybakina. “Five, it’s quite a lot. I’m not sure that the quality of the matches would be as good. But I don’t know how much players will have a voice on who is going to decide but it’s quite difficult.”
It is unclear as to how likely it is for Grand Slams to actually introduce this, with it being 28 years since the last best of five sets women’s match.
However, it is becoming increasingly clear that a number of top WTA players including Rybakina, Gauff and Iga Swiatek do not support the best of five set format being introduced.
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Rybakina will not need to worry about best of five matches at the Qatar Open, as she looks to achieve something that hasn’t been done in 13 years.
After winning the Australian Open, many players choose to skip the Middle East swing, which has been the case for the past five years.
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Rybakina has broken that trend and is now just three wins away from becoming the first player to win the Australian Open and the Qatar Open back-to-back since 2013.
That was when Victoria Azarenka achieved this feat, and the Belarusian actually also did it in 2012 as well.
| Year | Australian Open women’s singles champion | How they performed at the Qatar Open |
| 2012 | Victoria Azarenka | Won the title |
| 2013 | Victoria Azarenka | Won the title |
| 2014 | Li Na | Lost in the third round |
| 2015 | Serena Williams | Did not play |
| 2016 | Angelique Kerber | Lost in the second round |
| 2017 | Serena Williams | Did not play |
| 2018 | Caroline Wozniacki | Lost in the semifinals |
| 2019 | Naomi Osaka | Did not play |
| 2020 | Sofia Kenin | Lost in the second round |
| 2021 | Naomi Osaka | Did not play |
| 2022 | Ash Barty | Did not play |
| 2023 | Aryna Sabalenka | Did not play |
| 2024 | Aryna Sabalenka | Did not play |
| 2025 | Madison Keys | Did not play |
Rybakina will look to move one step closer to achieving this goal when she takes on Canadian teenager Victoria Mboko, who beat Mirra Andreeva in her latest match.
Despite Mboko only breaking through on the WTA Tour last year, it is actually the fourth time Rybakina has played her.
Rybakina has the advantage in their head-to-head, which she leads 2-1, but Mboko won their only previous match at a WTA 1000 event.
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