#tennis

Best-of-five is the whole point of a Grand Slam — stop trying to shorten it

Every year someone floats cutting the Slams to best-of-three to save time and bodies. That misses what makes them the pinnacle. Five sets is a test of not just shot-making but stamina, nerve, and the ability to solve a problem over three-plus hours. Half the greatest matches ever happened in the fourth and fifth sets, in territory best-of-three never reaches. If you shorten it, you flatten the difference between winning a Tuesday 250 event and winning a major. The length is the filter. Keep the filter. [Tennis.com's own best-of-three-vs-five debate](https://www.tennis.com/news/articles/the-long-and-short-of-it-debating-best-of-three-sets-vs-best-of-five) covers exactly why shortening it would cheapen the moment.