Swiatek, on Potentially Playing Best-of-Five at Slams: “Weird” Idea

While the tennis world continues to digest outgoing Australian Open CEO Craig Tiley’s proposal to introduce best-of-five set matches for women starting at the quarterfinal stage of Grand Slams, World No. 2 Iga Swiatek has emerged as a leading voice of a skeptical locker room. 

Here’s what Tiley said last month: 

“One of the things I’ve been saying now is that I think there should be three out of five sets for women. We should look at the last few matches — the quarters and the semis and the finals — and make the women’s side three out of five. 

“So it’s something we should put on the agenda and start talking to the players about it because there’s some matches in those last rounds which would have been fascinating had they been three out of five sets.”

Six-time major champion Swiatek has been candid about the logistical and physical hurdles such a shift would create, calling it a “weird approach” in a modern landscape where most entertainment is trending toward shorter, faster formats. The Pole expressed serious doubts about whether the audience would actually embrace longer matches and, more pointedly, whether the players could “keep the quality for five sets.” 

Swiatek grounded her argument in the reality of current training blocks, noting that “men are more physically strong and they can handle it for sure better,” while emphasizing that women have never practiced to sustain that level of intensity over four or five hours. 

“I don’t know if we would be able to keep the quality for five sets,” Swiatek said. “Well, that’s a fact, like, men are more physically strong and they can handle it for sure better. Also, we have never practiced in a way to prepare for that, so we would need to change, I think, our whole calendar, because the Grand Slams would be so tough that I don’t think we would honestly have time to prepare for any other tournaments.

“I think it would change a lot. I don’t think it would change anything for good. I don’t know what’s the reason, honestly, for this. You know?”

This sentiment is echoed by fellow major champion Elena Rybakina, who highlighted the jarring nature of a mid-tournament format change, noting that starting a Slam in one format only to stretch to a best-of-five format in the second week would be incredibly difficult to navigate. 

“You start in one format, and then it gets longer, so it’s mentally also, to be ready to play so many sets if it goes to that point, I think it’s not easy,” she said. “And of course physically, then you need to understand how you’re gonna feel. Even if you have this one day in between, it might not be enough, and then in the second week sometimes you play two days in a row.

“I think it’s a huge change, and I don’t think it might be interesting also for the people, because they maintain the level for so many sets, I think it’s going to be quite difficult.”

That leaves Sabalenka as the main advocate for best-of-five for the moment. 

“Let’s do that,” she said. “I feel like I would probably have more Grand Slams. I feel like physically I’m really strong, and I’m pretty confident that my body can handle that. So let’s do it.”