Nick Kyrgios uses Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz as examples to suggest radical change for Grand Slams’ best-of-five-sets format.
Nick Kyrgios used the examples of Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz to share his radical idea to transform tennis at Grand Slams. According to the Australian, men’s matches at Majors should be best-of-three-set affairs up until the quarterfinals.
Apart from the Grand Slams, men’s matches at the ATP Tour and ATP Challenger Tour levels are all best-of-three sets. Typically, such matches tend to end quickly compared to contests played out at Majors. Meanwhile, in recent years, several men’s Grand Slam matches, especially those that start late at night, have finished in the early hours of the morning.
For instance, at the 2024 Australian Open, the second-round matchup between eventual runner-up Daniil Medvedev and Emil Ruusuvuori finished at 3:39 AM local time in Melbourne, having started at 11:16 PM on the previous night.
Recently, Nick Kyrgios, who is set to return to competitive action in the 2025 season after spending almost two years on the sidelines with injury, spoke up about the subject. During an appearance on The AO Show podcast on Monday, November 18, the former World No. 13 said that best-of-three-set matches until the quarterfinals at Grand Slams would lead to fewer scheduling issues.
The 29-year-old later talked about how best-of-three-set matches would make things trickier for established players such as Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz. Kyrgios cited his compatriot Li Tu’s example. Tu surprisingly won the second set of his first-round match against Alcaraz at the 2024 US Open but then proceeded to lose as the Spaniard clinched the first, third and fourth sets.
