Game for three sets

Beyond demands on players from the crowded tennis calendar, two arguments have been forwarded in defence of the three-set switch

The eternal debate over whether men’s Grand Slam tennis tournaments should be five sets or three sets unexpectedly reared its head again at the season-ending ATP Finals in London. Given a year when the tennis calendar was severely truncated by the Covid-19 pandemic and Wimbledon was cancelled this was a strange time for the question to come up. The context, perhaps, is the rival Players Association headed by World No.1 Novak Djokovic which aims to introduce changes to the sport, three-set Grand Slams among them.

Mr Djokovic’s argument for shorter Grand Slams is that the tennis calendar is unusually heavy —