!Pic by Pete Bodo
Now and then, you get a great example for why something is—or isn't—a good idea. It's especially valuable when we get a little itchy and want to mess with the status quo. There's always someone out there who wants to revamp this or revise that, change the rules, format or terms of engagement that obtain in tennis.
One of the more frequent calls for "reform" comes from those who would like to see all men's tennis played out in a best-of-three format.
Has there ever been a better example of the superiority and ultimate credibility of best-of-five tennis than the most recent U.S. Open final, won by Novak Djokovic in a match that didn't even go to that five-set limit (6-2, 6-4, 6-7, 6-1)? Does anyone doubt that while the result in a best-of-three would have been the same, the match would have been a total bore and terribly misleading about the basic quality and character of the two players—of the level of competition to which each man aspires, successfully, most of the time?
Granted, knowing that you're playing a best-of-three match could potentially affect the flow of the match—that is, Nadal might have felt a more urgent need to stay in the hunt if the U.S. Open final were a three-setter, max, and therefore might have found a way to mount stiffer resistance in the second set. But that's a very big maybe and at the end of the day it hardly matters. What is significant is that Djokovic couldn't get away with a fast, easy, somewhat misleading blowout—he was forced by the format to perform due diligence and give Nadal a reasonable period of time in which to get his game together. This begs the question, what is "reasonable?"
And that's my whole point. Best-of-seven would not be reasonable, nor is best-of-three. Best of five hits the perfect medium between tennis under- and over-kill. A best-of-five match can be as short as a three-setter, finishing in under two hours, or as long as five-plus hours. The Djokovic-Nadal match was 4:10 in duration, but keep in mind that players more inclined to get on with things could have come in with a similar score in maybe 3:45.
It's often said that the advantage of best-of-five is that it makes it more likely that the better player will win, and I guess that's true. But to me the beauty of the five-set format is that it's essentially one big insurance policy against an aberrant score made possible by an hour or so of streaky play—a run "in the zone" of which almost any pro-level player easily is capable. It's harder to stay in that zone over the course of three to five sets.
At the same time, though, a clash featuring two particularly well-matched players, whether it's a matter of comparable talent and/or ranking, or comparable "on any given day" form, can become an epic with a richer subtext than any three-set battle. A five-setter that's close from the start almost always becomes an emotional and mental trial by fire. Few three-setters ever achieve that degree of competitive grandeur.
In any event, one of the great thing about five setters is that we don't have all that many of them (just as we don't have too many occasions to file insurance claims). At the U.S. Open, in the past 25 years, we've witnessed only three five-set finals, most recently Juan Martin del Potro's conquest of Roger Federer in the 2009 final. You have to go all the way back to 1999 for the next one (Andre Agassi d. Todd Martin). Before that, we had that masterful Mats Wilander win over Ivan Lendl in 1988 (it's still my favorite all-time match).
At the Australian Open, we've witnessed just three five-set finals since 1986, with Pat Cash coming up on the losing end of two of them—in back-to-back years, no less. In 1987 it was Stefan Edberg who took him down, 6-3 in the decider. The following year, Edberg's countryman Wilander did the honors in one of the best Aussie finals ever (Wilander won it 8-6 in the fifth). The only other five-setter in a quarter-of-a-century in Melbourne was Rafael Nadal's win over Federer in 2009 (note that Federer lost two Grand Slam finals in five-set matches that year).
The French Open has kicked out a quintet of five-set finals since 1986, starting with Michael Chang's 1988 win over Edberg. Jim Courier won an epic (d. Agassi, 1991) and lost one in 1993 to Sergi Bruguera. Six years later, Andre Agassi won a five-set final (d. Andrei Medvedev). The last five-set final at Roland Garros was Gaston Gaudio's stunning and barely credible upset of Guillermo Coria in 2004.
Wimbledon—as you might expect because of the difficulty entailed in breaking serve—has produced the most five-setters in the same period: seven, including three in a row starting in 2007. The first two were between Federer and Nadal (they split) and in the third, Federer broke Andy Roddick's heart, 16-14 in the fifth. Goran Ivanisevic's charmed run in 2001 ended in a glorious five-set win over Pat Rafter, which was especially gratifying for the Croat. He had previously lost two five-set finals on the greensward, one to Pete Sampras in 1998 and one to Andre Agassi in 1992. Before that, Edberg won a five-set final with Becker in 1990.
The number of five-setters that rank among the most memorable moments in tennis history is striking.
Another wonderful thing about five setters is that while any match in that format can go the distance, the overwhelming number of them do not—not even in finals between great players. In fact, out of the 127 matches played at the U.S. Open this year, only 18 went the distance, and a whopping eleven of those were played in the first round.
The other stronghold of five-set tennis is Davis Cup, and just this past weekend we saw Mikhail Youzhny come up big for Russia in a World Group Playoff round battle. Desperate to stave off elimination (and thus relegation) in the fourth rubber with Russia down 2-1, Youzhny outlasted Thomaz Bellucci 14-12 in the fifth to keep Russia's hopes alive (Dmitry Tursunov then clinched the tie for Russia in a four-setter over Ricardo Mello).
Vasek Pospisil was the hero for Canada in the playoff round. Opening the tie against Dudi Sela of Israel, Pospisilwon a five-setter—then, after Milos Raonic was upset, Pospisil clinched for Canada with a three-set win in the fifth rubber.
The only other five-setter in World Group Playoffs action was Stanislas Wawrinka's clincher for Switzerland against Australia's Lleyton Hewitt. Wawrinka won it, 6-3 in the fifth.
All in all, I wouldn't necessarily want to see more five-set battles, but I'm glad we have the ones we do, and welcome the greatest value of the five-set format: It keeps everyone honest.