At Grand Slam tournaments, five-set matches often last many hours. Reason enough to make changes – says a tennis legend.
They happen again and again in tennis: marathon matches over five sets and countless hours. Just recently, Novak Djokovic and Lorenzo Mussetti dueled until three in the morning at the French Open in Paris. Unforgettable anyway: the first round duel between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut in 2010 at Wimbledon, which ended in the fifth set with Isner winning 70:68 and lasted more than eleven hours.
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For tennis legend John McEnroe, such long matches are unacceptable. In an interview with the London Times, the 65-year-old explained that he is in favor of having a match tiebreak to ten instead of a normal fifth set at the four major Grand Slam tournaments.
“I would suggest this middle ground. That is a compromise that I would start with, as opposed to a best-of-three format,” said McEnroe, who was infuriated by Djokovic’s match until the early hours of the morning.
“This schedule is terrible, a joke,” he complained to Eurosport. The fact that the Serb was injured in the following match only made McEnroe even more upset.
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McEnroe wants fifth set as match tiebreak
“If Novak’s injury doesn’t make the organizers rethink, what will? The best player in history gets injured – and the match against Musetti until three o’clock played a role in that. No one can tell me that this doesn’t have an impact on his body, on his entire system.”
In addition to the 65-year-old’s suggestion, there is also ongoing discussion in the tennis world about whether the introduction of a best-of-three format in the first three rounds of the Grand Slams would be effective. Duels over five sets would then only be possible from the round of 16 onwards.
Marathon matches are becoming more and more of a problem not only for the players but also for the organizers because, in addition to the singles competitions, there are also doubles, mixed, wheelchair, junior and legends competitions.
By the way: At Wimbledon, there will be no matches until after midnight due to the 11 p.m. curfew. If a match is still in progress, it will have to be interrupted and continued the next day.
2024-06-29 20:42:16
#set #Tennis #legend #differently
