Tennis Australia CEO to ignore 'purists' with radical new ideas putting best-of-five format at risk

Change is always on the minds of many when it comes to sport with the organisers always striving to lure in more fans and grow their particular sport. Tennis fits perfectly in this equation, but too much change may not always be the best thing. The new Tennis Australia CEO Andrew Abdo has outlined his preliminary thoughts of abolishing best-of-five set format at Grand Slam level as he hints at radical altering's in the sport.

Following in the footsteps of Craig Tiley, Abdo will hope to achieve much success while working for Tennis Australia with the Australian Open the main attraction Down Under. The first Grand Slam event of the year, it is always a popular one with the best players in the world regularly battling it out in some engaging contests.

The tournament has also been a trailblazer for change at major level, not afraid to try and test new things. Most recently was the One Point Slam which brought a lot of enjoyment and success not just off the court, but on it too. It also became the first to introduce a tie-breaker at 6-6 in the final set.

While big and notable changes, they have been met with a warm reception and do not hugely change the state of affairs in the tournament. Abdo's suggestion of abolishing best-of-five set format would be the contrary, and would be met with a mixed reception by many tennis fans.

It is synonymous at Grand Slam level in the men's game, but the problem from the organisers perspective is that it drags on too long at times with the younger generation having a tendency to lose interest. As they try and push tennis towards a different market as they look to reap the rewards, controversial sacrifices may need to be made.

Abdo did not rule out the possibility of changing up tennis. "Sport is entertainment. And clearly there’s unbelievable athleticism involved with the sport at that level. But the rules and the format and the product has to evolve," Abdo said at the SportNXT conference in Melbourne.

This involved him pitching forward the idea of a shorter format. "And so a short-form version of that, who knows? Maybe in the future, Slams at the different rounds, or at different lengths of duration, maybe we’re not playing best-of-five all the way through, maybe the point scoring system changes. Maybe there are different permutations to how we engage and entertain audiences without losing the fabric, and what really makes the sport special."

He dismissed the 'purists' tennis fans view as he strived to get more younger people involved. "I think those are the questions that we need to explore and discover, and I think there’s a place for evolving that. If you listen to the purists, they’ll say, 'don’t touch that'. But actually... if you look at sports around the world, if you’re not thinking about that product in a way that’s contemporary, in a way that’s going to connect with young people, then I think you’re going to be left behind."

There has been talk about a best-of-five format being introduced from the quarter-finals onwards for the WTA event, but that has been pushed back by the players. Scoring changes have occurred in some events, most notably the Next Gen ATP Finals. Each set is first to four games, there is no-ad scoring, and no lets on serves.

Abdo has set out his ambitions of making tennis the biggest sport in Australia with the Australian Open the centre of all of this. "The vision we have to have is we want this to be not only the best Slam in the world, we want this to be one of the most iconic events in the world," he said.

"And to do that, we have to listen and we have to stay connected to everything that is changing in the world — what consumers want, players want, what sponsors and corporates and broadcasters want.

"It’s moving really quickly. But tennis is something that is related. It’s global. It’s probably the most gender-balanced sport in the world in terms of pay at the elite level. I think in five years’ time, the AO will be the biggest, most successful Slam on the planet, and tennis will be the No. 1 played and most popular sport in this country. And work backwards from there. It’s up to us to find ways in which we can make that a reality. And that’s exciting."