Demands of Best-of-5 Sets Give U.S. Open a Pandemic Wrinkle

It is an unprecedented situation: a United States Open with no spectators in a strictly controlled environment with competitors and their teams unable to venture beyond the tennis venue and their lodging.

And one of the wrinkles of the decision to restart the 2020 season after a five-month break comes for the men’s players as they play best-of-five-set matches.

Not only do they have to search for top gear almost immediately by playing in that format in a Grand Slam tournament. They must then cross an ocean and do it again later this month on a different surface at the French Open, the Grand Slam event in Paris that has been moved from its usual dates in May and June because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“I was extremely tired yesterday; it’s not easy to play over four hours after such a long break,” said Mikhail Kukushkin, who reached the third round of the U.S. Open with a five-set victory over No. 13 seed Cristian Garín on Wednesday.

Because of that extended break, the longest of most players’ careers, Novak Djokovic, the men’s No. 1, said in a recent interview with The New York Times that he would have welcomed a “conversation” about downshifting to best-of-three-set singles matches for this U.S. Open.

He felt players had to deal with widely varying situations during the hiatus: some getting much better training conditions than others. Djokovic caught the virus during his much-criticized Adria Tour exhibition series, and though he experienced only mild symptoms, he said the lack of clarity on the long-term medical effects of the virus might be another reason to consider best-of-three.

“These kind of circumstances are very unusual,” he said. “I think a player’s health and well-being and form and shape is maybe underestimated a little bit.”

But the discussion never got beyond the preliminary phase.

“Our conversations were 100 percent with the ATP and the athletes, and they did not want to consider best-of-three,” Stacey Allaster, the U.S. Open tournament director, said on Thursday.

Allaster said the talks were with the ATP leadership, which includes the new chairman, Andrea Gaudenzi, and “informally with players,” but not with the ATP Player Council. Djokovic was president of that council until resigning last week when he helped establish a new men’s player group.

Though Gaudenzi has cited existing agreements with broadcasters and sponsors as part of the reason for the U.S. Open’s being insistent on the current format, Allaster said those broadcasting and sponsorship contracts do not require playing best-of-five sets.

It is a significant point of difference for the Grand Slam tournaments, which are the only events in tennis to still use it.

“It doesn’t feel like the wrong decision so far to keep it for this tournament,” said Jim Courier, the former No. 1 and U.S. Davis Cup captain, after the first round of men’s matches at the U.S. Open.

You could argue that a five-month break from tour play could actually help players be fresher, readier and healthier for marathon matches.

“It is extremely difficult to play best-of-five sets, especially in the hot and humid conditions here,” Kukushkin said. “But I believe that during this pandemic, all the players, they take care of their old injuries or took care of their fitness.”

Preliminary returns are encouraging.

There were 14 five-set matches in the first round of men’s singles this year, and though a few had lopsided fifth sets as one player lost steam, there were three fifth-set tiebreakers as well as Andy Murray’s gripping 4-hour-39-minute victory over Yoshihito Nishioka.

Intriguingly, the number of retirements in the men’s first round was the lowest at the U.S. Open since 2012: just two, with Jason Jung retiring in the fifth set against Federico Coria and Jaume Munar retiring in the third against Dominic Thiem.

In 2019, there were three retirements in the opening round; in 2018, there were nine.

This year’s numbers might indicate that players had fewer physical issues upon arrival: logical considering the U.S. Open usually comes near the end of a long, grueling, jet-lagged season.

As for recovering from a five-setter, six of the men who won one in the first round were able to win their second-round matches, as well.

“If you have been fortunate enough to have the normal workout tools at your disposal, there’s no reason this should be a heavier lift than normal,” Courier said, pointing to the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam tournament of the year that starts in mid-January, typically two weeks after the season starts.

“Players come off an off-season, they go to Australia, they play a warm-up tournament and they go best-of-five in very extreme heat typically,” Courier said. “So it’s not a different ask than that.”

But Australia does come after an off-season of less than two months.

“It’s definitely different; The length of the break this time was almost three times what you would usually get,” said Dani Vallverdu, Andy Murray’s former coach who is now working with Karolina Pliskova.

In a typical year, Vallverdu said, a player goes into the off-season having played 60 to 70 matches and does not lose much match fitness before the new season begins.

Now, he said, “guys didn’t get more than seven or eight matches since last November.”

“The big question mark for me is how players will be able to handle back-to-back five-setters or a few of them,” he added.

The consensus is that you cannot replicate match play in practice.

“You can’t train for this stuff, man,” Frances Tiafoe said wearily on Thursday night after reaching the third round with a five-set victory over John Millman, one of the fittest players on tour. “It’s tough to put yourself in a position where you’ve got the nerves and anxious energy that you get playing at the highest level.”

What the players have never seen is a season with the French Open after the U.S. Open. There will be a narrow 13-day gap between the two, which is similar to the two-week gap that used to exist between the French Open and Wimbledon until Wimbledon moved back a week in 2015.

The French Open-Wimbledon double called for players to shift from clay to grass but only to cross the English Channel (La Manche if you are French). The U.S. Open-French Open double now will require a trans-Atlantic flight and a shift from acrylic hardcourts to clay.

“Going to grass meant much less rallies, so this time it’s a different way around,” said Jan-Lennard Struff, the German who will face Djokovic in the third round of the U.S. Open. “Surface changes are always a big deal. You don’t have to overthink it, but it will be difficult for everyone, playing on clay is a different game style.”

Courier thinks it is easier, in general, for players to switch from hardcourt to clay than clay to grass. “There may be some fast-court players who don’t agree,” he said. “But I think by and large it’s easier to go from a faster court to a slower one where you have more time.”

The players are accustomed to the hardcourt to clay shift, which usually happens in February and again in April. But they have never played two Grand Slam events in such a narrow window after a long break. Avoiding marathon matches in New York seems important if you want to thrive in Paris, too.

“It’s going to be very interesting for the players who go deep at the U.S. Open,” said Paul Annacone, Roger Federer’s former coach who now works with Taylor Fritz, the rising American who is into the third round. “How quickly can they turn around and get physically and mentally recharged and regroup?”

The French Open challenge looks all the more daunting with the 12-time champion Rafael Nadal passing on the chance to defend his U.S. Open title to stay in Europe and prepare on his beloved red clay.

“I think it helps Rafa a ton,” Annacone said. “I always think he’s a favorite but more so now. He has all this free time to prepare exactly as he wants. So for me, if someone were able to win both of them this year, the U.S. Open and French Open, it’s arguably the toughest double.”

How tough?

“In our current environment with the times we’re living in, it would be one of the great doubles in tennis history,” Annacone said.