Can Five-Set Tennis Survive In The Age of Climate Change?

Five-set tennis is not just the pinnacle of tennis, but arguably the pinnacle of all sports. Nevertheless, because of its uniquely demanding nature, it has long faced threats to its existence. Now, as the first week of the 2026 French Open has demonstrated, it faces a threat to its survival from perhaps the most powerful of all forces – climate change.

Can Five-Set Tennis Survive Climate Change?

Five-Set Tennis (And the Objections To It)

Since tennis was formalised into a sport in England at the end of the 19th century, the men’s version has largely been played out over five sets. This extended or “long-form” version of the game has always been its finest version, as proven by the fact that all the greatest matches in men’s tennis history, including Borg v McEnroe at Wimbledon in 1980 and last year’s classic French Open Final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, have been played out over the five-set format. Quite simply, five-set tennis has enabled prolonged, ultimately epic matches that are not possible in the three-set format.

Over the last 10 years or so, however, there has been an enormous contraction of the five-set format, such that it is now the sole preserve of the Majors, having been abandoned at the Masters level, in the Davis Cup, and at the Olympics. A few years after the truly extraordinary 2012 Australian Open final between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, which lasted just short of six hours, Billie Jean King famously opined that the rigours of that match would have shortened both players’ careers by at least a year.

Given that Djokovic is still playing and Nadal continued to play for another 12 years after that 2012 Melbourne final, it had initially appeared that, for once, Billie Jean King was wrong about the devastating toll that five-set tennis matches, especially grueling five-set Major finals, would have on players’ careers. However, perhaps she was only premature in her assessment, because over the last year or so, the arguments against the continuation of five-set tennis have gathered strength.

In particular, the first week of the 2026 French Open, which was played in the highest temperatures ever recorded for springtime in Paris, has renewed calls for men’s tennis to be like women’s tennis and played over three sets, not five. Over the last week at Roland Garros, the combination of searing heat, the attritional nature of clay-court tennis, and the sheer competitiveness of a Grand Slam has led to a succession of shocking scenes.

They include Casper Ruud complaining of being a “zombie” after his first-round match and Jakub Menšík physically collapsing at the end of his second-round match, which had lasted for five sets and nearly five hours in total.

As Catherine Whitaker of The Tennis Podcast put it, it is as if professional men’s tennis is turning into a version of “The Hunger Games”, in which even the greatest athletes in the sport are no longer able to compete safely, especially if their matches go the full distance.

Climate Change: The Problem Tennis Cannot Fix Itself

In his perfectly named article in the first week of the 2026 French Open, LWOT’s Jack Beatnik asked: “Will Tennis Eventually Eat Itself Alive?” He examined all the factors that had wrought such devastation in the higher echelons of men’s tennis even before the start of this year’s clay classic, including player load, scheduling, and global warming.

Of all those factors, however, climate change is the one big problem for tennis that it cannot fix itself.

Theoretically at least, player load and scheduling can be eased considerably, if not eliminated completely, by changes to the way in which tennis is organised and played. However, dealing with the catastrophic consequences of global warming is not something that tennis can fix on its own.

The best that tennis can do is try to mitigate the impacts of extreme heat, both at the macro level of the sport as a whole and at the micro level of individual players.

Mitigating The Impact of Climate Change on Tennis

The single most important change that tennis as an entire sport can make is to try and provide much greater shade, or in some cases any shade at all, to enable players to gain some respite, however brief, from the increasingly intense glare of the sun. Roland Garros is the classic example of a tournament and venue that does not provide nearly enough shade, precisely because, when it was first built and then developed over the last century, the need for shade was not nearly as great as it is now.

It is obviously difficult to provide shade on courts where there is none, but it is not impossible. The resources of a Major tournament are such that some of them can be diverted relatively easily into the provision of much greater shade, both for players and fans. And for smaller tournaments such as Queen’s, which often have to bring in extra seating once a year while they host their annual event, it will surely become de rigeur somehow to bring in extra shade alongside that extra seating.

Scheduling, or rather rescheduling, is also absolutely vital, especially in periods of extreme heat, like the last week in Paris. There should be more play later in the day, when temperatures are cooler. However, that does not mean that there should be more late-night matches or, worst of all, matches that continue beyond midnight.

The devastating impact of post-1am finishes has been demonstrated over the last decade, and the problems of late finishes, including all the sleep disruption they cause, are only exacerbated by more intense climatic conditions.

At the level of individual players, there are also things, including relatively cheap and simple things, that can be done to mitigate, if not minimise, the impact of extreme heat. Perhaps the simplest example of all would be adding a small towel to the tennis players’ kit, as is already commonplace in American football or the NFL.

Especially in extreme heat, players expend unnecessary energy, either walking to or from their towel box or waiting for ball kids to bring them a towel. A simple clothing or fashion addition, such as sewing a small towel into shorts or skirts, à la NFL players, could bring considerable benefits.

Similarly, treatment for cramping, which is obviously more common in extreme heat, must finally be allowed. It is frankly ridiculous that players often have to pretend to have other injuries simply to receive some relief from agonising cramps.

Tennis Must Act Now

From providing more shade to more responsible scheduling to possible changes to kit and allowing medical treatment for cramping, tennis, and specifically men’s tennis, we must act now to try and offset the worst excesses of climatic volatility.

The 2026 French Open, which at times has been hotter than the 2026 Australian Open, must be a turning point, when the sport finally wakes up to the existential danger it faces from climate change and, in particular, the threat that five-set tennis, the greatest form of tennis, faces in our increasingly burning world.

Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane – Imagn Images