Best of 5 sets?

[LeeD]

Hey, I play at RoseGarden, Berkeley. Drop by and play some 4.0 doubles, best of ONE set...

[Say Chi Sin Lo]

Originally Posted by LeeD

Hey, I play at RoseGarden, Berkeley. Drop by and play some 4.0 doubles, best of ONE set...

And no deuces.

[tennis tom]

The only five setter singles that sticks in my mind was probably about 20-25 years ago. We started playing in the light after work with the Friday night club buffet just starting in the dining room next to the court. He was an athletic Polish soccer player and I was running marathons back then. We just kept playing and playing. What sticks in my mind was about four sets in, an amiable club member came out from the buffet to smoke a cigar and started the usual good ol' club boy banter, like "What's the score?". At that point we were in no mood to hear it and told him to more or less ****-off. Five setters will play with your mind a bit. We were still playing under the lights when all the food was gone, but there was still plenty of booze left.

[hammer]

The last and only time I played a five setter was against a friend of mine back in high school almost 20 years ago, and I won with a bagel in the fifth and coming back from being down 2 sets to 1. 10 years ago I wouldn't have mind playing a five setter if I had the chance, but now I can't imagine doing it. The closest thing to it was two years ago when I played back to back three set matches with less than an hour break between matches. I was so exhausted I ended up defaulting at 4-3 in the third set of my second match.

[tennisee]

Best of five is good, but you have to do it properly; none of this tiebreak rubbish. Advantage sets only. A friend and I play it on grass once a year for fun. We don't play best of five, we just play five regardless. This thread prompted me to look up our old scores; here was 2009 - 11-9, 8-6, 9-7, 6-3, 17-15.

[Mike Y]

Originally Posted by tennisee

Best of five is good, but you have to do it properly; none of this tiebreak rubbish. Advantage sets only. A friend and I play it on grass once a year for fun. We don't play best of five, we just play five regardless. This thread prompted me to look up our old scores; here was 2009 - 11-9, 8-6, 9-7, 6-3, 17-15.

Wow, that's insane, lol.

[Sakkijarvi]

I love playing best of 5 singles matches and fortunately have a couple of friends that are my level and also into it. But guys like that are rare among the tennis guys I know. Most make cranking out a set of doubles sound like running the NYC Marathon.

[3fees]

Best of 5 is good,never be adopted in regular usta tournaments as the matches would not get done over the weekend,,some sites have few courts and theres no limit on how many can enter,,

[tennis tom]

Originally Posted by 3fees

Best of 5 is good,never be adopted in regular usta tournaments as the matches would not get done over the weekend,,some sites have few courts and theres no limit on how many can enter,,

That's for SURE, and it would kill the club's bar business, players wouldn't have the strength to hold their beers up afterwards.

[TheFifthSet]

Best of 5 is fun as hell. I just love wars of attrition. Sounds like I might be in the minority. My fitness is pretty good and a 5th set is always thrilling regardless of the circumstance. In fact, playing BO5 with my friend (both 4.0-4.5) really improved my fitness. We played a 33 match series strictly BO5, and at first our shots were very timid and weak during the latter sets. Now there's not as big a discrepancy. Of course, there are exceptions. One week our matches went to a 5-setter on three consecutive days. I don't think we played for a week or two after that third match.

But I would recommend people try it out more, it makes bo3 go by in a breeze.

[MrCLEAN]

Love 3 out of 5's