By Richard Pagliaro | Wednesday, February 3, 2021
"Hell, yeah, as far as I'm concerned [the Australian Open should play best-of-three-set matches]," says ESPN analyst John McEnroe.
Photo credit: Getty
John McEnroe says the impact of severe AO quarantine calls for creative change: Make all Australian Open matches best-of-three sets.
In a conference call with the media to promote ESPN's first ball to last ball coverage of the Australian Open starting Sunday, February 7th at 7 p.m. on ESPN, McEnroe was asked to assess the impact of the hard quarantine down under. Seventy-two players were confined to their Melbourne hotel rooms for two weeks due to governmental Coronavirus safety protocol.
Davenport: Hard Quarantine Can Lead to AO Suffering
Hall of Famer McEnroe said "hell yeah" he'd support shortening men's matches from the traditional best-of-five sets to best-of-three sets at the 2021 AO given so many players have not had adequate training time and will enter the Melbourne major at a significant competitive disadvantage.
"I would totally endorse that, absolutely," McEnroe said of the AO adopting a universal best-of-three-set format. "There's a number of players, I don't know how many men and women out of the 72 that were quarantined, that couldn't leave their hotel room, but there's obviously some type of disadvantage. Not to mention a lot of players come from colder climates...
"Being able to train for five hours a day for two weeks, that's pretty much what they would do anyway doing that. But having said all that, I think it would be a tremendous idea. I don't think the players would go for it, probably the top guys, that radical a change that quickly. I would be, Hell, yeah, as far as I'm concerned."
Hall of Famer and Tennis Channel lead analyst Lindsay Davenport said she's concerned for the physical health of players going from confinement to Grand Slam competition in less than 10 days.
"You like to ease your way into it. All of a sudden right now it's obviously a very compacted schedule," Davenport said during a conference call to promote Tennis Channel's AO coverage. "Just the way it had to be. I think they'll make adjustments and get through it.
"I worry for those 72 players that were in the hard lockdown. Physically I think we're going to see a lot of players suffer because of that."
Eighteen-time Grand Slam champion Chrissie Evert disagreed with ESPN colleague McEnroe. Evert said the time for making such a radical change was weeks ago and says it simply wouldn't be fair to spring such a change on players days before the Australian Open is set to start.
"I don't know if you can spring it on them now, you got to play two-out-of-three sets. Two weeks ago when they were in quarantine, they should have had some discussions on Zoom with the ATP," Evert said. "They should have thought of this two or three weeks ago when this was going to happen, don't you think? I don't know if you can just spring it right now. I think it's a bit late. I don't think they're going to do that."
Still, McEnroe contends condensing men's major matches is not some radical reckoning. The man who held the world No. 1 ranking in both singles and doubles believes there is a happy medium in the choice between best-of-five set matches and best-of-three set Grand Slam matches.
McEnroe advocates men play a full four sets at majors with a 10-point tiebreaker replacing a traditional fifth set in the event a men's match is tied at two sets apiece.
"My answer to that would be that I was always looking for that solution in the middle, which is best-of-five, but say a 10-point tiebreaker at the end of the fourth set," McEnroe said. "That would be my compromise. I wouldn't make it two-out-of-three now at the majors. I would still have it different."
Growing the game's popularity by making tennis more accessible to current fans and new ones are among the reasons McEnroe envisions a Grand Slam scoring change as inevitable.
"We're heading in that direction for a number of reasons. We want this sport to grow, for God sakes," McEnroe said. "Shoot ourselves in the foot all the time. I don't understand it.
"We have this incredible sport, so we should try to make it as accessible so people could afford to play, a big issue obviously, but accessible in other ways, so that they want to tune in, to take advantage of all the good things about the sport," McEnroe said. "That would be one that I think is a no-brainer personally. I mean, I've been saying that for 30 years."
Critics of equal prize money at Grand Slams point out men are paid the same as women despite playing longer match format. McEnroe said Grand Slam tennis will never expand women's matches to best-of-five sets, but he can envision a day when men play best-of-three sets at majors.
"They will not change the best-of-five to best-of-three I don't believe. If anything, they would change the men's quicker a match, not the women's longer matches," McEnroe said. "If anything changes at all, there will be a tiebreaker at the end of the fourth set, a 10-point tiebreaker. That's where we should be headed, not having the women play best-of-five.
"It's already taking too long. These poor souls goes out for five or six hours. Fans' attention spans aren't that long. That's asking too much. You see that in other sports where they're shortening matches and games. They're not lengthening them."