Victoria Azarenka Makes Bold Statements on Men’s Grand Slam Tennis Format

After her opening round, 7-5 6-4 victory over Vera Zvonareva at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, Victoria Azarenka sets up her pre-quarterfinal clash against the fourth seed, Karolina Pliskova in Stuttgart.

Meanwhile, the two-time Australian Open champion, Victoria Azarenka opened up about differences in the WTA and ATP tennis. To everyone’s knowledge, the biggest difference is the number of sets being played in both the categories during Grands Slams.

She believes men get exhausted during the marathon matches and it hinders them to play their natural game. In order to preserve their actual tennis standards, their matches should be compressed into three sets. “Men should just play best of three in my opinion!”, Victoria Azarenka said. “Will be a much better quality of tennis and hopefully no ruined finals or semifinals because of the exhaustion… like has happened quite a bit”.

The best of five sets format in Grand Slams is certainly the test of endurance on the men’s circuit. This format has produced some of the best matches in the history of tennis and has given tennis players and followers blissful memories. Apart from their skillset in tennis, the prolonged matches at the majors evaluate their athleticism and fighting spirits. Moreover, a player’s efficiency and mental toughness are determined when they pull off a victory after dropping the first two sets.

There are more than sixty tournaments happening on the ATP circuit throughout the year and out those events, just four of them have the concept of best of five sets. Indeed, the elongated matches at the Grand Slams reveal the profoundness of a tennis player and to what extent they can push themselves in order to play better tennis.

World Number 61, Victoria Azarenka certainly believes the game of tennis can still create history by playing best of three sets as she said, “Why wouldn’t there be those matches? So in your opinion, there never been an amazing three-set match for the history books? Really? Makes not that much sense to me. But that’s my opinion.”

Be it the Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal’s 2008 Wimbledon or 2009 Australian Open final, Novak Djokovic and Nadal’s 2012 Australian Open final, Federer and Nadal’s 2017 Australian Open final or last year’s Wimbledon matches these matches have convincingly given a better understanding of tennis to the players on the men’s circuit. In addition to that, the sport witnessed the pinnacle of tennis with these matches. 

The Belarusian, Victoria Azarenka pointed out the new amendment in tennis. “We just had a new rule added to shorten matches with a time clock,” she mentioned. “What you talking about makes zero sense and has no facts. And I will ask how many spectators in the stadium have sat through the entire five-set match.”

If a major happens to follow the same format as an ATP 250 event does, the charm of the tournament might certainly fade away. Palpably, the general audience might have a mindset of not attending the tournament because it’s just another best of three ATP tournament. They may not turn up for the event and that might as well affect the ratings of a Grand Slam event.

Victoria Azarenka has just voiced out her opinion in concern to the exhaustive matches on the men’s circuit. “All I’m saying is different people like different things, so if it’s not what you like just go on and move along and do what makes you happy. But stop forcing what you like or your opinion on other people,” she added.

A few ago, the Olympics tennis was regarded as the fifth Slam but now, they have condensed their tennis match to best of three sets which in turn curtails the glory of a momentous tennis contest. Hence now, Olympics are not at par with the majors of tennis and it might be juxtaposed with the ATP Finals.