Australian Open chief considers rule change after | Sports News

Australian Open boss Craig Tiley voiced his need to increase ladies’s singles matches to best-of-five units following the thrilling outcomes of the boys’s semi-final clashes — although not all gamers appear excited concerning the concept.

The closing rounds of the boys’s Grand Slam featured no scarcity of leisure, as Carlos Alcaraz fended off Alexander Zverev in a marathon match that lasted 5 hours and 27 minutes. Novak Djokovic offered an even higher follow-up, besting two-time defending champion Jannik Sinner in 4 hours and 9 minutes earlier than making a cheeky gesture to his opponent.

In Tiley’s eyes, the extent of competitors was one thing that might by no means be replicated. “You can’t replicate that [men’s] semi-final day. That was amazing,” he advised AAP earlier than branding this yr’s Australian Open as “probably the biggest and best event ever.

“I’m still like getting chills just thinking about it, and then you can’t replicate that final last night on the women’s side. It was unbelievable.”

Tiley was moreover left impressed by Elena Rybakina’s upset victory over world No.1 Aryna Sabalenka within the remaining, although conceded that he would’ve loved seeing it play out over best-of-five units. “One of the things I’ve been saying now is that I think there should be three out of five sets for women,” Tiley added. “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. Now I don’t know whether the players would want to do it or not, but it is something we need to consider on the women’s side.”

According to Tiley, the Australian Open wouldn’t need to acquire approval from the Grand Slam committee in an effort to change the format of the ladies’s singles match as early as subsequent yr. That being mentioned, the 64-year-old asserted that he would make no such changes except he obtains specific approval from these competing within the occasion.

“Certainly if we’re going to do it and we think it’s the right thing, we’ll definitely go in 2027,” Tiley defined. “So there’s nothing in the rules stopping that from happening. But we need to do it with really deep consultation with the players.”

Back in 1994, Australian Open officers equally tried to shift the 1995 ladies’s remaining to best of 5 units, however in the end shelved the plans upon receiving backlash from gamers — most notably Steffi Graf.

Sabalenka, for one, already expressed concern about adjusting ladies’s knockout matches at Grand Slams to best-of-five units. “I think probably physically I’m one of the strongest ones. Maybe it would benefit me. But I’m not ready to play five sets,” she advised reporters final July.

“I think it’s too much on the woman body. We are not ready for this amount of tennis. I think it would increase the amount of injuries. So this isn’t something I would consider. I’ll leave this for the guys to handle.”