By Kerry Fothergill

In the men’s game the only matches played over best of five sets are during the four grand slams and the Davis Cup tournaments.

This continually leads to a clear divide between the top and bottom of the men’s game.

At the top, the players can afford to train harder to gain the fitness and endurance needed to master the consistently over best of five sets.

Embed from Getty Images

Due to best of five sets having the possibility of lasting for five plus hours, endurance and mentality can in the end be more important than tennis ability.

Whilst at times there can be an upset and a much lower ranked player can beat one of the top, but these are few and far between, with the likelihood of them playing as well in the next round extremely slim.

There has been criticism of women’s tennis being inferior due to them only playing best of three sets during the slams whilst their male counterparts play best of five.

But with a study suggesting that everyone’s attention span has reduced perhaps it is time the men play less or risk spectators losing interest.

This would not be an easy change for the traditionalist, but can anyone honestly say they have watched a whole match without looking at your phone, or needing to get up and walk around.

We have been blessed when the top ranked players have played five sets matches, but of the number that have gone to five sets, how many have been great tennis all the way through?

It is extremely rare that a five set match comes down to quality tennis, instead it boils down to endurance, with only a hand full that have actually been worth watching for the whole match.

Watching a player struggle to move at the end of a match, barely able to hit the ball over the net, is not really the way a good match ends.

Novak Djokovic once suggested that if he could stay with Andy Murray at the beginning he would win because he believed his fitness was superior.

At the time Djokovic was the top ranked tennis player so surely he should believe in his tennis ability rather than putting his fitness above all else.

Ben Rothenberg a writer for the New York Times is possibly the biggest voice for change.