Today I move into a new topic within the USTA Friend at Court. Cue the balloon and confetti drop. I am once again making progress through the actual rules of tennis.
A match can be played to the best of 3 sets (a player/team needs to win 2 sets to win the match) or to the best of 5 sets (a player/team needs to win 3 sets to win the match).
USTA Friend at Court, Section 7, Score in a Match
On the surface this would appear to be a fairly simple topic to tackle. Simply work quickly through the description and move along to the next topic. Unfortunately, in tennis, best-of-three versus best-of-five is inextricably linked to gender politics, since currently only the men play best-of-five. Equal prize money debates inevitably gravitate toward the number of sets played. This is a topic that is fraught with peril.
Returning to the actual verbiage in the rule, sanctioning organizations can elect to play events in the best-of-three or the best-of-five format. As a practical matter, the vast majority of tennis is played best-of-three. Best-of-five is currently only played for the men’s singles at the four majors and in the Davis Cup.
Examining the historical scores from Wimbledon for both the men and women, it seems that the men played best-of-five and the women played best-of-three from the inception of those championships. The reason for the discrepancy being carried forward seems to boil down to tradition. It has simply (almost) always been that way. Tradition has become a recurring theme in this project. As it turns out, a lot of practices in tennis are steeped in tradition. I am usually attached to and very much respect tradition. Not so much in cases where it is used as a justification for inequity or oppression.
It might surprise people to learn that there have been sporadic forays into best-of-five play for women. When the US National Championships, which later became the US Open was originally conducted, the women’s title was initially played best-of-five. At the time the event was held separately from the men’s tournament. In 1903, the United States National Lawn Tennis Association decided to change the women’s championship to best-of-three over the vehement protests of the women who were competing at the time.
This is where the umpire I gave birth to will stop reading to ask “What was it like for you in those days?” In related news, the umpire I gave birth to isn’t nearly as funny as she thinks she is.
Fast forward to an event that I do actually remember, Billie Jean King defeating Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes” in 1973. That match was played best-of-five. Since no one reads anymore, a movie was released 2017 which is a reasonably close dramatization of the actual history. I should probably assume that readers of a tennis rules blog are already aware of the “Battle of the Sexes” movie, but I feel obligated to mention it anyway.
I was unable to make it to the theater for this one, watching it for the first time on a plane. I experienced a brief moment of elation after Billie Jean won the second set before recalling that the match wasn’t actually over. I was told by friends who saw the movie in theaters that they experienced the same thing.
There is actually a lot more history to women playing best-of-five than I had imagined. Tomorrow we will get into other examples of women playing the format which also occurred in my lifetime, but somehow previously escaped my attention.
I had not anticipated how much I would personally learn in this project.
- United States Tennis Association (2020) Friend at Court. White Plains, NY
- The Long and Short of It: Debating Best-of-Three Sets vs Best-of-Five, Steve Tignor, tennis.com, June 26, 2019, page viewed 3/2/2020
- Why Women Don’t Play Best-Of-Five Matches at Grand Slams, Lindsay Gibbs, May 27, 2016, page viewed 3/2/2020
- Battle of the Sexes, Fox Movies, 2017.
