When Ben Shelton and Carlos Alcaraz embrace at the net after four and a half hours, five sets, and a super tie-break, the clock reads 3:34 a.m. in New York. The stands at Arthur Ashe Stadium, the largest tennis arena in the world, are nearly empty.
The scene could be, at the very same time, the best possible advertisement for tennis and one of the worst ways to sell it. It is an image where the epic and the absurd intertwine, reopening a long-standing debate hovering over the industry: does it still make sense to play best-of-five-set matches?
The response from the past is a resounding “no.” What would tennis be without fifth sets? The 2008 Wimbledon final between Federer and Nadal wouldn’t exist; nor would the 2012 Australian Open final between Djokovic and Nadal; nor the 2009 Wimbledon final between Federer and Roddick; nor the 2025 Roland Garros duel between Alcaraz and Sinner—to name a recent example. These are just four instances showing that the most memorable, iconic matches in history exist thanks to the fifth set.
However, the response from the present is a tentative “we need to think about it.” The boom of the sports industry and the media consumption habits of younger generations are two forces pushing toward a more agile, faster sport—one less rigid in its rules and less unpredictable in its scheduling.
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The match between Alcaraz and Shelton is the perfect embodiment of this contradiction. Fifth sets generate the kind of drama that tennis desperately needs, but they also create a chaotic logistical nightmare that the business side wants to avoid. How many fans were able to watch the entire Shelton vs. Alcaraz match live? How many viewers abandoned the broadcast before its resolution? And above all, what television network can build a broadcasting schedule around a sport where a match can last two hours or five, and where an evening fixture might conclude as the sun is about to rise?
This is hardly a new dilemma. Tennis has been trying to curb scheduling uncertainty for years. The Masters 1000 tournaments took a major step in that direction when their finals, traditionally played over five sets, switched to a best-of-three format in 2008. The move aimed to make tournaments more predictable and manageable, tailor the product to television demands, and lighten the physical toll on players.
Now, the debate has resurfaced with renewed intensity. Almost in parallel with the Shelton-Alcaraz clash, Tennis Australia’s new CEO, Andrew Abdo, opened the door to potential format changes down the road, including moving away from best-of-five matches at Grand Slams.
“Maybe, in the future, the Grand Slams will undergo changes. You know, perhaps we won’t play best of 5 sets from start to finish, or maybe the scoring system will change,” Abdo said during the SportNXT sports summit in Melbourne. “Maybe there are different permutations to how we engage and entertain audiences without losing the fabric and what really makes the sport special”.
— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) September 10, 2026
The Australian Open quickly moved to extinguish the flames. “While innovation is in the Australian Open’s DNA, five-set tennis is here to stay,” the tournament stated on social media. It was a reaction that highlights just how sensitive this topic is: even proposing a debate immediately triggers the feeling that one of the sport’s foundational pillars is under threat.
“Do Grand Slams really need to be best-of-five sets? 4-5 hours feels crazy for players and even for fans,” wrote basketball legend Manu Ginóbili on X, raising a point that is hard for any sports fan to ignore: no other major sport regularly allows peak-level competition to end at such hours as a direct consequence of its own format.
Yet it is also true that tennis is unique precisely because it doesn’t run on a clock. A match can turn on a single point, and no player is ever out of it until the final ball is struck. Just ask Qinwen Zheng, who saved two consecutive matches at this US Open after trailing 5-0 in the third set.
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The principle that a tennis match ends when a specific score is reached—rather than when a timer runs out—is vital to the sport. It fills every game with suspense and gives physical stamina and mental fortitude a far greater weight than in most other sports. It is the core identity of tennis.
Eliminating fifth sets would therefore come at a tremendous cost. It would make the product infinitely easier to schedule, allow matches to start and finish predictably, and streamline television consumption. The real question is what the sport is willing to sacrifice to shorten its duration.
Tennis has already proven it can evolve. The Masters 1000s changed. Tie-breaks were introduced. Formats adapted. Even Grand Slams implemented final-set super tie-breaks to prevent endless marathons like the 11-hour, 5-minute ordeal between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon in 2010.
Perhaps the solution isn’t doing away with fifth sets altogether, but finding a way to protect what makes them special without forcing players to finish a Grand Slam quarterfinal at 3:34 in the morning.
Because the match that nobody wants to see end at that hour might be the exact match that, twenty years from now, everyone will still remember.
And therein lies the great paradox of tennis: fifth sets are too long for television, yet too valuable to simply throw away.
