The US Open could be set to jump the gun ahead of the Australian Open and introduce best-of-five set matches for women’s tennis players.
Currently it is just men who play best-of-five set matches at Grand Slam tournaments, with there constantly a debate over whether women should play the longer format as well.
This debate was reignited during the Australian Open this year, as tournament director Craig Tiley stated his desire to introduce best-of-five set matches for women from the quarterfinals next year.
Tiley’s comments have split opinion, but the US Open could actually take the initiative ahead of the Australian Open with this.
The key reason why the US Open could introduce best-of-five set matches for women
Tiley has been the tournament director of the Australian Open since 2006, and has just enjoyed his 21st edition at the helm of the tournament.
As with every Grand Slam tournament there were controversies, with Tiley responding to Coco Gauff’s calls for more privacy after she was spotted breaking her racket backstage following her quarterfinal defeat.
However, this may actually have been the last year with Tiley as the Australian Open tournament director, who has been linked with a senior role at the United States Tennis Association (USTA).
Nothing has been confirmed in terms of this, but Tiley’s refusal to deny these rumors has suggested that it is a likely scenario.
With Tiley seemingly heading out of the Australian Open, the South African could be about to shake things up at the US Open with his best-of-five set proposal.
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This could really cause a divide among the locker room, with defending champion Aryna Sabalenka previously claiming she was ‘not ready’ to play five set matches.
While this would no doubt be a groundbreaking change for the tournament, it would not be the first time that the US Open has had women play in a best-of-five set format.
Have women ever played best-of-five set matches?
If the US Open were to change to the best-of-five format they would be reverting to something they last did in 1901, when the tournament was known as the US National Championships.
Between 1891 and 1901, the US National Championships held a Challenge Round which saw the previous year’s winner take on the winner of the event of the current year.
For the Challenge Round between that 10 year period the two finalists would compete in a best-of-five set match.
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While it has been some time since a Grand Slam held best-of-five set matches for women, another tournament has had it happen more recently.
This occurred at the WTA Finals, which features the best women from the year and takes place at the end of the season.
Between 1984 and 1998, the WTA Finals saw the final of the tournament held as a best-of-five set match.
The last time that this happened was in 1998, when Martina Hingis beat Lindsay Davenport in a four set final at Madison Square Gardens.
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