John McEnroe has proposed scrapping fifth sets at the Grand Slam tournaments in favour of a 10-point tiebreak. The debate over the scoring system and late finishes at Majors was reignited when Ben Shelton beat Carlos Alcaraz at 3.33am in the US Open quarter-finals, with Alcaraz calling for action to be taken to prevent matches ending in the early hours.
McEnroe's super tiebreak proposal
The American tennis icon believes a super tiebreak could be the answer. McEnroe has been in London for the Laver Cup this weekend, where he previously captained Team World – a position now held by Andre Agassi.
All Laver Cup matches are best-of-three sets, with a 10-point tiebreak played in lieu of a third and final set, and the seven-time Major champion wants the biggest tournaments to take note.
Attention spans and late finishes
“I like the way it ends. I would even suggest – because people's attention span seems to be a lot less than they used to be – in the men's game, play best of five, but at two sets all, play a 10-point tiebreaker,” McEnroe said.
“Some of the matches I called, a few matches that went late into the night at the [US] Open, some went in excess of five hours. We finally got to the stage where there's tiebreakers in the fifth set on all four Majors.
“So we're seemingly getting more on the same page, but I still think more needs to be done because it's a great sport that we have. You don't want people playing at 3.30 in the morning.”
Alcaraz's concerns over recovery
It comes after Alcaraz raised concerns about his late-night loss to Shelton. “For an athlete finishing at 3.30am, it means we had to leave the courts on site at 4.30am almost,” the seven-time Major winner explained.
“Then getting back to the hotel. You don’t get to bed until like 6.30am or 7am. For an athlete to recover for the next match, you have a day, but for the next match, it’s like the other player is with an advantage. I think it’s too much. They have got to do something. I am not saying 3.30am, but [even] finishing at 12am, it is too late already.”
