Wimbledon will introduce final-set tiebreaks next year, the All England Lawn Tennis Club has announced.
Wimbledon will introduce final-set tiebreaks next year, the All England Lawn Tennis Club has announced.
The new format will see a tiebreak played when the score reaches 12-12 in the final set and will apply to all events at the Championships.
The move comes after this year’s record-breaking semifinal between Kevin Anderson and John Isner required six hours and 35 minutes to complete, with the final set finishing 26-24.
Records fell, people came and went, but by the end of 6 1/2 exhausting hours of heavy metal tennis, Tom Hamilton learned to love one of the most extraordinary duels in Wimbledon history.
Bring on the ‘breaker. There is simply no great purpose in an era of grueling tennis to have players competing with no end in sight.
Plans to expand the site of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships have taken a vital step forward after members of a nearby golf course agreed to hold a vote on whether to sell off their land to the championships.
In a statement released on the Wimbledon website, tournament organisers said they had reviewed match data from the past 20 years of competition and had chosen to bring in tiebreaks after speaking to players and officials.
It means all singles and doubles matches on both the women’s and men’s sides of the Grand Slam, and all matches in the Junior tournament, will follow the same new format to decide the winner in the final set.
The US Open had been the only Grand Slam where a final-set tiebreak was used to decide singles matches, although both the Australian Open and French Open have brought in tiebreaks for doubles matches.
« Our view was that the time had come to introduce a tiebreak for matches that had not reached their natural conclusion at a reasonable point during the deciding set, » said AELTC chairman Philip Brook.
« While we know the instances of matches extending deep into the final set are rare, we feel that a tiebreak at 12-12 strikes an equitable balance between allowing players ample opportunity to complete the match to advantage, while also providing certainty that the match will reach a conclusion in an acceptable time frame. »
Both Anderson, 32, and Isner, 33, called on Wimbledon to move to a final-set tiebreak after their marathon match in July’s semifinal.
It was the second-longest match ever at Wimbledon, only beaten by the longest match in tennis history which also involved Isner — his epic 6-4,3-6,6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68 win against Nicolas Mahut in 2010.
Anderson went on to lose to Novak Djokovic in the final less than 48 hours after the grueling contest.
The AELTC said it would discuss its decision with representatives of the other Grand Slams and the WTA, ITF and ATP at a meeting in Singapore.
