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By Chris Oddo | Saturday August 18, 2018


The ITF's ratified radical changes to Davis Cup mean that best-of-five tennis will be basically extinct except for the Grand Slam stage, and Roger Federer says that will make things tricky for young players who will now encounter best-of-five challenges at the majors with no experience.

The Swiss has said he’s still strongly in favor of playing best-of-five at the majors (go to 1:40 in the video above to hear his thoughts), and he’d like to see more best-of-five finals on tour as well. Unlike Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, who are now leaning in the other direction, Federer stands by his beliefs that the best-of-five format is, well, best for men’s tennis.

“I'm for more five-setters from time to time at some key events, starting with the World Tour Finals,” Federer said. “I think the finals has to be best of five. I don't know why we went back to best of three. I was in the voting room when it happened, and all the players were for best of three. I couldn't believe it.

“I was the last guy to vote, so it was, like, Well, it doesn't matter what I say anymore, because all the other players voted for best of three. That was back in Shanghai in '06? I'm not sure how long ago it was now.”

The final at the ATP Finals switched back from best-of-five to best-of-three for good in 2008. At Indian Wells, the last best-of-five final was played in 2006.

In Cincinnati, Djokovic told Tennis Channel that he’d like to see tennis go to best-of-three format, even in majors.

“I would have even Grand Slams go best-of-three,” he said. “The new generation of tennis fans and millennials, they don’t have the great attention spans, they want things to happen very quickly. I think it’s for the players as well and to attract more viewers of a younger audience, I think we have to keep dynamic and shorter.”


Andy Murray, in an interview with Ben Rothenberg of the New York Times, expressed his belief that marathon matches are bad for the game.

Federer said that it is TV and politics that changed the format at Masters events.

“And then for players' health, and I understand we just said throughout, you know, across the board, we had to do best-of-three finals because we also had changes, as you remember, with the TVs deciding, well, we have a slot for best of five, so this year it's best of five. Next year you came in and we had a slot at 10:30 in the morning at Indian Wells. You're like, okay, we'll have only best of three then. And it was over in an hour. I remember the match, Hewitt against Henman, for instance. It just couldn't go on like this. I think we just had to take a decision, and the tour had to take a decision. That's why I think we see no more best of five at that level.”

With no more best-of-five tennis at Davis Cup, and no more best-of-five tennis at the Masters, young players will be forced to find their way on the Grand Slam stage.

“But sure, it's not easy, then, if you only play best of three to all of a sudden show up and only play best of five at the slam level, because you do need some experience for that,” Federer said.

Federer says he is a bit surprised about the ITF’s vote and decision to radically alter the Davis Cup, beginning in 2019.

“I don't know how the votes work, to be honest. But clearly the ITF has never historically involved the players, so that is saying—but the federations, yeah, we're kind of there but we're actually not there. They decided to do that.”

The Swiss, who won the Davis Cup in 2014, but also had to skip many ties as his schedule became too crowded with the Grand Slams his priority, says he knew the format was flawed but didn’t see how it could be fixed.

“I'm still a bit surprised,” he said. “I didn't get involved because I didn't know the solution. It was definitely flawed in some ways, you know, the Davis Cup, the way it was running the last few, you know, years, maybe the last decade or so, but last ten years. So for me, I don't know, I feel sad about it, you know, not to have the Davis Cup as it used to be. Will never be the same.”

He added: “But, look, I'm all for innovation, and gotta give them a chance to some extent. It will be interesting to see how it's going to work.”

 

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