John McEnroe has been labelled a 'joke' for suggesting men's Grand Slam matches ought to be reduced from best-of-five sets. The legendary tennis icon has been a long-time critic of the current format, which sees all male Grand Slam matches decided by the first player to three sets.
The proposal has been ripped to shreds by fellow tennis ace and countryman Jan-Michael Gambill, who believes McEnroe's suggestion shouldn't be taken seriously.
Gambill rejects fifth-set tiebreak idea
The former Wimbledon quarter-finalist told the Inside-In Tennis Podcast: "I'm not a proponent of taking away the fifth set. I think especially if you work so hard, you play four sets and then you're going to play a 10-pointer for the fifth. I mean that's a joke, I think that's an actual joke and that sells athletes short. It sells what's really hard short."
He added: "The five sets was really difficult for me, I struggled in five-set situations, I ran out of steam in the fourth and fifth sets a little bit. That was my problem, other people figured it out and I think that is one of the things that is so amazing to watch."
McEnroe's proposal and Zverev's response
McEnroe's suggestion was to play to two sets each if necessary, before deciding the match with a tiebreak. He previously said: "People's attention spans are shorter than ever. But Novak has won so much precisely because he was able to last longer than others. He was fitter than anyone had ever been and won matches that lasted five hours or more. He was much harder to beat in best-of-five-set matches than in best-of-three-set matches."
Adding: "For Grand Slams, I would recommend a match tie-break when the score is two sets all, rather than a full fifth set."
But that hasn't garnered the full support of the tennis world. Alexander Zverev recently said: "I don't agree with the whole debate about attention span and all that because the Australian Open just had record numbers this year. The US Open just had record numbers this year. I kind of don't agree with it because I think the sport of tennis is growing. I don't know a single player who would like to play best-of-three sets. Yes, maybe Novak wants to play best-of-three because of course he's getting a bit older now. I think if you would have asked him this 10 years ago or 15 years ago, for sure not."
