Danielle Collins is calling for riddance of the best-of-five-set format as the former world No. 7 believes such matches are "way too long."
On the latest episode of Tennis Channel's The Big T Podcast, Collins, CoCo Vandeweghe and Brad Gilbert sat together to discuss various topics.
During one segment, Gilbert – who famously worked with Andre Agassi and also guided Coco Gauff to her maiden Grand Slam title – revealed that he was "sick" of hearing claims that men's tennis should get rid of five-set matches.
Vandeweghe, a 2017 Australian Open and 2017 US Open semifinalist, threw out an interesting proposal, saying that men and women should play best-of-three sets until the Grand Slam quarterfinals and then switch to a five-set format.
Collins disagrees: We have to flush that down the toilet
After hearing Gilbert and Vandeweghe's takes, Collins was quick to highlight that she was fully against five-set matches.
“I disagree with both of you. I think we have to do away with three out of five. We have to flush that down the toilet. These matches are way too long! What are we even doing? The whole year we are doing two out of three on the men’s side and then at the Slams it’s three out of five, it does not make any sense to me," the 2022 Australian Open runner-up said on Tennis Channel's Big T Podcast.
However, Gilbert remained unfazed in his admiration for five-set matches.
“If you change men’s tennis from best-of-five to best-of-three and then five, we are changing history," Gilbert added.
After Elena Rybakina defeated Aryna Sabalenka in this year's Australian Open final, tournament director Craig Tiley revealed that the tournament was thinking about introducing five-set women's matches as soon as 2027. The plan would keep the standard format until the round-of-16, and then switch to best-of-five from the quarterfinal onward.
It is safe to say that Collins wouldn't like to see that happen.
