Should female tennis players play five sets in a Grand Slam?

“The women only play three sets and the men play five.” We’ve all heard it before. The tired line that we brandish from time to time during a Grand Slam tournament, or worse, when a woman tennis The player dares to ask for her fair share of the prize money. Audacity.

To be honest, this is not a false statement. Men play, at least in major competitions, best of five sets, while women play best of three sets. How could they think they deserve equal reward? This kind of debate has hindered women’s tennis for decades and undermined the achievements of some of the best players to have graced the field.

Too often Serena Williams is celebrated for her achievements in women’s tennis. Not tennis. “Women’s tennis”. With two Grand Slam tournament formats, it’s easy to see how women’s and men’s tennis seem to be entirely different entities within the same sport.

GIVEMESPORT looks at the history of five sets in women’s tennis, to determine whether the sport needs reform and whether it should be left to female athletes to make the biggest changes.

Why do tennis players play three sets in Grand Slams?

Tradition may be responsible for enforcing the best-of-three rule, but if you look at history, you’ll find that it hasn’t always been this way. From 1891 to 1901, women played best-of-five matches in the finals of the United States National Championships, the predecessor to what is known today as the U.S. Open.

Many of these finals went to five sets, but the Council of the National Lawn Tennis Association of the United States reduced the format to the best of three sets, believing that five sets would be too daunting a task for women.

There is no reason to guess that the council had only male members. Elisabeth Moore, who played two five-setters at the 1901 Championships, criticized the officials for not consulting the players. She pleaded for them to stick to the original format, saying: “Lawn tennis is not only a game of skill but also of endurance.”

So that was it. The women continued to play best-of-three matches. That was until Billie Jean King came along. In 1973, after constantly criticizing women’s tennis for being inferior to men’s tennis, Bobby Riggs came out of retirement to take on King. They played in front of 30,472 spectators at the Houston Astrodome, in this legendary match which has since become better known as the ‘Battle of the Sexes.’

It was decided that it would be a best-of-five set match, but King mocked her male opponent, not even needing the fourth or fifth set. She beat Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. After King’s historic victory, the players voted in 1976 to play best-of-five matches. The tournament organizers were against this idea, however, and so the best of three remained. But from 1984 to 1998, five sets again became a possibility in women’s tennis. The WTA Tour Finals adopted a best-of-five format for the season-ending competition.

Learn more: Billie Jean King: the ultimate tennis pioneer who paved the way for equal pay

Martina Navratilova and then-WTA president Chris Evert expressed support for the new format. “The best-of-five final adds another exciting dimension to the tournament, as it gives us more chances to showcase our talent,” Navratilova said at the time.

This era coincided with the dominance of Navratilova and the emerging talent of Monica Seles and Steffi Graf, and the matches, more often than not, lasted longer. Of the 16 finals during this period, six of them went to four sets and three lasted five full sets.

Graf featured in two of the three five-setters, the last of which in 1996 before the format disbanded in 1998 due to poor television ratings and scheduling problems.

Since then, no tournament on the WTA tour has featured best-of-five matches, but the topic has been the subject of much debate. So what are the arguments and why haven’t we seen best-of-five-set matches in women’s tennis in over two decades?

Learn more: Monica Seles: ‘Greatest tennis player of all time’ stabbed on court

Advantages and disadvantages of five-set matches in women’s tennis

Those who vouch for greater equality in tennis generally want one of two things. They want the women to play best-of-five games, just like the men. Or, they want men to play best-of-three, just like women.

For the most part, the latter solution is the norm. Across the various ATP Tour series, there are more than 60 tournaments each year, and all of them implement the best-of-three format.

Grand Slam tournaments, which host best-of-five matches for men but three for women, are generally at the forefront of tennis, reiterating the idea that men always play more sets than women. women.

But for most of the tennis season, men and women play the same format. So this equal prize argument should be dead to those who think women should earn less because they play fewer sets.

Yet female athletes receive equal prize money at Grand Slam tournaments where they do not play as many sets, but receive less when competing in events equivalent to those on the ATP Tour where best-of-three is the standard format.

For what? Well, the disparity between men’s and women’s tennis is a direct result of two different entities, the ATP and the WTA, operating in the same sport. The ATP has traditionally had more success in ticket sales and television audiences, allowing it to generate greater revenue than the WTA through more advertising and sponsorship deals.

Even without money being taken into account, the discrepancies in the number of sets played reinforce the idea that women are not as capable as their male counterparts. Grand Slam tournaments essentially support gender inequality because tradition dictates that they follow the same formats.

And where are the epic women’s five-set matches that go down in history? Of course, few could match Serena in a best-of-three match, but what a spectacle it would have been to see an opponent push her to five sets.

Andy Murray, considered one of the unluckiest stars in historyoffered an insightful comparison between men’s and women’s tennis in 2013, stating that he saw them as two different sports.

“I’m not saying that men work harder than women, but if you have to train to play five sets, the distance is longer. It’s like someone training to run 400 meters and someone training to run 600 meters,” he told the New York Times.

Women’s tennis will always fall short of men’s tennis when there isn’t even a chance to produce the same kind of convincing performance seen in the 2008 Wimbledon final between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, for example.

And, let’s be honest, epic five-set thrillers aren’t necessarily the future of women’s tennis, as they could soon be a thing of the past for the men as well.

Could five-set matches be eliminated in men’s tennis?

The best of five will remain for now in the men’s Grand Slam based on precedent. Removing it would cause a stir in the tennis hierarchy which tends to cling to tradition.

But tennis is at a point where there is growing demand for reform as its market value becomes an issue. The ATP and WTA want to find ways to attract younger audiences.

Long matches are not the solution for either men or women as future generations increasingly want shorter content. Scheduling would also become an issue if more matches were allowed to go to five sets.

The unpredictability would make it harder to organize TV slots, leaving room for less lucrative rights deals. Additional planning of court schedules would increase overall tournament costs.

And finally, do female players even want to play best-of-five matches? The answer is most likely no. Although many would jump at the opportunity to be on equal footing with male players, the tennis circuit is already a difficult task. Do they really want to add to that more chance of injury and less chance of recovery between games?

There’s no denying that format differences between men’s and women’s tennis tend to raise questions about the sport’s approach to gender equality. Grand Slams are perhaps the only tournaments where these differences are reinforced, but they are the ones that are universally recognized.

Indeed, it is not just about developing women’s tennis. The sport must also consider changes on the men’s side. Perhaps a best-of-three format for both men and women is the way to go if we want to combat inequality on the courts, while also capturing the attention of the next generation.