Enough is enough, no more tedious marathons please

WIMBLEDON have to introduce tiebreaks in the fifth set because this is just ridiculous. I have been saying it for years but after Kevin Anderson and John Isner’s match finished 26-24 in the fifth set on Friday, meaning Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal finished yesterday, I think Wimbledon will go to final-set tiebreaks next year. If they don’t they have just got their heads in the sand again.

For the consumer watching these long matches on TV, a lot tune out. People don’t sit and watch four, five hours of tennis. I said in my column last week I’d go to best-of-three sets for the men too but I know a lot don’t agree. If we’re going to stick with five we have to have a tiebreak.

Sets like Isner against Anderson, where they are both serving big, the games go by one after the other and the quality of tennis drops. If you go in the first week of Wimbledon and see some of the matches that go five sets, I just don’t think they are entertaining.

And there’s going to be more of this because there are a lot of taller guys coming up with big serves and on grass we are going to get longer and longer matches. We have had two back to back with Anderson after he beat Federer 13-11 in the quarter-finals. Then there was Nadal v Djokovic finishing 10-8 and in the boys’ singles on Friday Britain’s Jack Draper won 19-17.

People say it’s gladiatorial but tennis players are not supposed to be marathon runners. The quality is more important than the quantity.

At the US Open they have tiebreaks in the fifth set and it is phenomenal entertainment. Once Wimbledon got used to it people would forget they used to play full sets. The matches that came down to tiebreaks would be nail-biting.

Anderson is fortunate because of the delay with Nadal and Djokovic. If that match had gone in straight sets he would have no chance today.