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HughPickens.com [hughpickens.com] writes:

Serena Williams is three matches from winning her fifth consecutive Grand Slam tournament after advancing to the U.S. Open quarterfinals. But Carl Bailik writes at 538 that winning doesn’t have to be so difficult for one of tennis’s all-time greats and her top rivals. While women play best of three sets at Grand Slams, the men play best of five. That means male stars have more chances to exert their superiority over opponents [fivethirtyeight.com] and the opportunity to stage hard-fought comebacks even after falling behind by two sets because generally in sports, the longer the match is, the better chance the better player will win [google.com]. At the U.S. Open, for example, only three of the top 10 women’s seeds reached the third round, while nine of the top 10 men’s seeds did. The early exits of top women’s stars from major tournaments has led some commentators to label them as inconsistent but Stephanie Kovalchik, a statistician at the RAND Corp., blames the best-of-three format. Kovalchik studied match results in non-Slam tournaments where both men and women play best of three and found that women are no less consistent than men [amstat.org] when competing under the same format.

Women’s Tennis Association chief Stacey Allaster said in 2013 that Women's Tennis Association players were willing to play best of five sets at the Slams [tennisnow.com], but her statement hasn’t led to any real movement for change. After Serena Williams' latest comeback from a lost first set Friday [go.com], Balik asked Williams whether she’d rather have the increased margin for error provided by the best-of-five-sets format. “I totally could” play best of five, said Williams. “But [it] doesn’t matter to me. Best of five, best of seven, whatever.” [usopen.org]

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