“Grand slams are best-of-five. If we take that and play best-of-three, I think we’re killing the Grand Slam legacy and we’re going to kill the Grand Slams,” he said. “In Grand Slams, we play five best matches right from the start, and I think that’s what makes those tournaments different and special. So I won’t dwell on any of that and it’s normal for me to play best of five.”
The question was not hypothetical. Andrew Abdo, who took over as Tennis Australia chief executive from Craig Tiley last month, told the SportNXT conference that the format was not intact; He pitched it as a way to reach a younger audience while acknowledging that purists would object.
The backlash was swift enough that the Australian Open itself began shutting down the thread before Alcaraz was asked about it, writing: “While innovation is part of AO’s DNA, five-set tennis is here to stay. We’ll soon reveal more about what’s in store for AO 2027.” The idea is not new either.
Novak Djokovic introduced a hybrid version of Wimbledon after 2024 with best-of-three in the opening rounds, while Tiley spent part of this year arguing the opposite case for women’s Grand Slam matches to go to five sets.
Playing a little bit less and not having as many tournaments in a row week after week.
Alcaraz has his own reason to be involved in the debate, having been involved in the meeting that gave it a new lease of life. Ben Shelton’s US Open match, which ended at 3.33am in New York, reignited the debate over how long tennis asks its players to stay on court.
What he would change, he said at the same press conference, is not the length of the meetings, but their number.
“I would say the calendar, I’ve always said it needs to change,” Alcaraz said. “Playing a little bit less and not having so many tournaments week in and week out. So I would change that, I would definitely change that.”
It’s a position he’s held publicly for two years now, as he said at the Laver Cup in Berlin in September 2024 that the schedule was “probably going to kill us in some way”, and one he defended again in London last week, insisting the team had weeks to recover rather than threaten.