Carlos Alcaraz pulled apart two arguments in Tokyo on Wednesday that have been running together since the US Open: how long Grand Slam matches should be, and how many weeks a season should ask of the players in them. He wants the first left alone and the second cut.
“The beauty of the Grand Slams is playing best-of-five sets. If we take away that and play best-of-three sets, we’re killing the legacy of the Grand Slams and killing the Grand Slams,” Alcaraz told reporters at the Japan Open, Reuters reported. “We’ve been playing best-of-five sets in the Grand Slam since the very beginning, and I think that’s what makes those tournaments different and special. I wouldn’t touch anything from that and for me, it’s okay to play best-of-five.”
On the schedule, his answer went the other way. “I’ve always said that it has to change,” he said of the calendar. “Playing a little bit less and not having that amount of tournaments in a row, week after week. So I definitely would change that.”
Why it came up now. Reuters traced the latest round of the debate to the US Open, where Ben Shelton ended Alcaraz’s title defence in a quarterfinal that finished at 3:33 a.m. Two format ideas have been in circulation. Novak Djokovic has proposed best-of-three matches in the early rounds of the majors, and new Tennis Australia chief Andrew Abdo said at the Sport NXT conference in September that the majors could explore alternative formats or scoring systems. The Australian Open followed with a clarification that five-set tennis was “here to stay”, and said it would reveal more ahead of the 2027 tournament.
It is the second time in a week that Alcaraz has used a news conference to push on how the sport is run. At the Laver Cup in London he argued that tennis is getting slower because of the balls, not the courts.
Testing “since the very beginning.” The claim holds for men’s singles at the majors, where the format dates to the earliest championships, and almost nowhere else. As GTN’s explainer on best-of-five sets sets out, men’s singles at the four Grand Slams is the only place professional tennis still uses it. Women’s singles at the same four events is best-of-three. The tradition Alcaraz is defending is real, but it belongs to one draw at each major, not to the Grand Slams as a whole.
Testing “a little bit less.” Alcaraz’s own October shows how the calendar he describes works in practice. He played the Laver Cup in London last week, beating Taylor Fritz 6-3, 4-6, 13-11, according to AP. He is the top seed this week in Tokyo, where the main draw runs from 30 September to 6 October, according to the ATP Tour. The Rolex Shanghai Masters, which lists him among its top seeds, runs from 5 to 18 October including qualifying. If he reaches the Tokyo final, he will finish one event after the next has already begun.
Of those three weeks, only Tokyo and Shanghai carry ranking points. The Laver Cup does not. The week he chose freely came first. The two that follow are where the tour keeps its points.
Where the decisions sit. Alcaraz missed nearly five months of this season with a wrist injury before returning in New York, Reuters reported. The ATP has argued the other side of his case. Its chairman, Andrea Gaudenzi, defended the calendar last year, saying scheduling remained the players’ choice and that the tour was working to set clear incentives so the right number of matches were played across a season, according to Reuters. Calendar concerns also feature in the Professional Tennis Players Association’s class-action lawsuit against the sport’s governing bodies, and the four majors have formed a Player Advisory Council to hear players on welfare and compensation.
The lasting question. The format of a Grand Slam match is decided by four tournaments. The shape of the season is spread across the ATP, the WTA, the ITF and the majors. Alcaraz is defending the thing the Slams control and asking for change in the thing no single body controls. The Australian Open’s promised 2027 announcement will show whether the format debate is closing. The calendar debate has no comparable date.
