By Richard Pagliaro | Tuesday, March 31, 2015

The most grueling set in the sport could feature a faster finish line next year.

Davis Cup could adopt a fifth-set tie break in 2016, International Tennis Federation president Francesco Ricci Bitti said.

"The idea is that from next year's Davis Cup we will introduce a tie break in the fifth set. We'll decide soon," ITF President Francesco Ricci Bitti told the Argentine newspaper La Nacion, adding that any rule change must be ratified by the ITF general assembly in September in Chile.

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World No. 1 Novak Djokovic and marathon man John Isner support a fifth-set tie break replacing the current rule where players play out the set.

Djokovic, who owns a 30-9 Davis Cup record, including a pair of wins in Serbia's sweep of Croatia earlier this month, supports a fifth-set tie break in all competition.

"I am more in support of a tiebreak in the fifth set in any competition than for no tiebreak," Djokovic told the media in his Miami Open press conference on Monday. "That would be my answer on that. I also support the fact to have a certain change in the sport. I think it's the right time. As we go along and as we evolve as a sport that is very global, I think that we should all strongly consider applying certain changes.

"Of course, you don't want to change completely the game. There is a long tradition in integrity of the sport that, you know, is very recognized around the world because of that. But still, I believe there is some room for improvements."

Isner knows how punishing fifth sets can feel when there is no tie break in sight.

The towering American and Nicolas Mahut collaborated on the longest match in tennis history in the 2010 Wimbledon opener that threatened to never close. The pair played an 11 hour, 5-minute epic spanning three days before Isner finally prevailed 6–4, 3–6, 6–7 (7), 7–6 (3), 70–68.

Earlier this month, 111th-ranked James Ward fought back for a draining 6-7 (4), 5-7, 6-3, 7-6 (3), 15-13 victory over Isner in a Davis Cup duel that spanned four hours, 56 minutes.

The physical price he's paid in marathon matches combined with his tie break prowess — Isner led the ATP with a 42-22 record in tie breaks last year — make the big server a big advocate of a fifth-set breaker.

"I didn't know that about Davis Cup, but I, for one, would be in favor of that, obviously," Isner said. "Played in a lot of long matches. I'd like to save my body a bit more if I do get a fifth set. Some people would be against it, and rightfully so. They have their reasons. For me, I'd be a pretty big proponent of that. We will see what happens. It's really out of my control."

The latest Davis Cup epic may have played a part in potentially adding a fifth-set tie break. In Buenos Aires earlier this month, Argentina's Leonardo Mayer and Brazil's Joao Souza played the longest Davis Cup match in history. Mayer converted his 11th match point prevailing in a six-hour and 43-minute thriller, breaking the previous record of six hours and 22 minutes set by John McEnroe and Mats Wilander in 1982.

Djokovic, a leader of Serbia's 2010 Davis Cup champion squad, favors a complete overhaul of the Davis Cup calendar as part of a larger schedule revision.

The world No. 1 would move the Australian Open to later in the season, giving the players more preparation time prior to the season's first major and reducing the four-month gap between Melbourne and Roland Garros.

"Davis Cup, the format of Davis Cup I think should be changed, definitely," Djokovic said. "The schedule is, especially for top players, is very, very bad. And then you have also certain things that are already in motion in terms of ATP schedule, in terms of Grand Slams. Now we have one week longer grass court season, which is longer this year, which is good. It gives you a little bit more time to prepare between the slowest surface in sport and the fastest surface in sport.

"Schedule is the same for so many years, but I still believe that Australian Open should be couple of weeks later, at least. To start off with a Grand Slam right away and the season hasn't even started, and then to have a very long gap between Australian Open and Roland Garros and then a very short one, it proportionately doesn't make sense."

The ITF has been notoriously resistant to change as players ranging from John McEnroe to Andre Agassi to Patrick Rafter to Roger Federer to Rafael Nadal have called on the Davis Cup governing body to at least explore the possibility of changing the Davis Cup calendar to make it a more player-friendly format.

Federer and Stan Wawrinka led Switzerland to its first Davis Cup championship in history last November. But given the competition's quick turnaround time, neither Grand Slam champion played in the 2015 Davis Cup opener earlier this month as the reigning champion Swiss were bounced in the opening round by Belgium.

The Australian Open champion points out top players have called for Davis Cup format change for years in an effort to encourage more players to participate while expanding attention for the world's largest annual international team competition in sport.

Djokovic suggests the current Davis Cup format discourages players from participating every year.

"This is something that it's not only coming from me in terms of changing of format of Davis Cup," Djokovic said. "Many top players have been talking about it in past years. There has been some talks, and hopefully, you know, people from ITF can recognize the importance of top players participating in Davis Cup each year, because that's the whole point.

"I mean, last year Switzerland won.Roger played, and Stan. But looking at the other teams, I mean, there were no Top 10 players playing in the teams. So it's not very, I would say, attractive marketing-wise for the media and for the fans. I'm sure that for the people who like tennis but don't follow it frequently, many of them do not know and do not understand what Davis Cup represents."