Australian Open: Women deserve to play five sets in tennis, five days in Test cricket

Ash Barty during the women’s Australian Open final. Picture: Michael Klein

On a freezing morning in 1967, Katherine Switzer was one of more than 600 runners in the Boston Marathon, but there was one hurdle she needed to clear. She was a woman. Under the rules of the Amateur Athletic Union at the time, women were not allowed to race against men.

In her book Marathon Woman, Switzer told how she paid the $3 entry fee and signed her name “K.V Switzer”, as she always did, on the entry form. She even checked the Boston Marathon rule book and “there was nothing about gender”. She wasn’t running to “prove anything”.

“I was just a kid who wanted to run her first marathon,” Switzer writes.

That morning Switzer put on some lipstick and was at the start line in a sea of men. And then she ran. She ran until the officials discovered her.

“Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers!” a race official yelled as he lunged at her, trying to tear off her race-bib. Switzer’s boyfriend Tom Miller, an All-American footballer who was also competing in the race too, thumped him. “He landed on the roadside like a pile of wrinkled clothes,” Switzer says in her book.

Switzer finished the race but faced a firestorm of press and pushback. She remained defiant.

“I think it‘s time to change the rules,” Switzer said later. ”They are archaic.”

Marathon runner Katherine Switzer.

You could say the same about the rules for women’s tennis and cricket right now. It’s 2022 and sport is still a world that hems women in. Currently women’s cricket Tests, on the few occasions they are played, are limited to four days. It really wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to go to five like the men, right?

But the sport that really needs to change its rules for women is tennis, which still restricts its female players to three-sets.

It’s time sports administrators stop limiting women, like they did with wannabe marathoners of the 1960s, women such as Switzer who were just running for “equality”. It’s time they made the playing field equal.

Five days is what sets Test cricket apart from other forms of the game. Best-of-five sets tennis is unique to the men’s grand slams. It’s what elevates the big four tournaments above the run-of-the mill ATP Tour.

As it stands, women are denied these unique challenges in sport. They can have memorable victories (or draws as was the case at Manuka Oval on Sunday) but are denied the chance for the epic battles that would raise their achievements into the pantheon of greats. The gates of sporting Valhalla are closed to them.

Alana King of Australia runs out Anya Shrubsole of England during day four of the women's Test match at Manuka Oval. Picture: Getty Images

While Ash Barty‘s defeat of Danielle Collins in the Australian Open final was a terrific contest — especially in the second set — it left you wanting more. It was all over in an hour and 27 minutes. Barty’s fightback from 1-5 down was brilliant. She won the final by claiming the first two sets. Daniil Medvedev won the first two sets of his final too. One is the Australian Open champion, the other isn’t. As Medvedev knows, best of five sets equals more comebacks, more fight, more emotion, more everything. It was a stage denied to Barty and Collins.

Barty spent 453 minutes on court in her seven matches across the past fortnight, in contrast the men’s final between Rafael Nadal and Medvedev took 324 minutes and has been considered a “tennis masterpiece”.

It’s not like women haven’t played five sets before. Players such as the supremely talented Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf and Monica Seles played a five-sets format in the WTA Tour’s Chase Championships from 1984 to 1998.

Time is often what women come up against in sports. Time to play, time to train, television time. Time is money.

Footballers who play in both the AFLW and NRLW are all keen for more time, for the season to be longer.

The AFLW, now in its sixth season, is currently in the midst of its longest season yet, with 10 rounds followed by three weeks of finals. But the players want more. The AFLW’s current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires at the end of this season and it is sure to be a point to be pushed with many keen for a full-length season. One where each team plays each other at least once.

The sentiment is the same in the NRLW, which kick-offs on February 27 and will feature only five rounds with the grand final to be played on April 10.

At Manuka Oval on Sunday afternoon, the one and only Test of the Women’s Ashes series came down to a thrilling finish on day four, thanks to a magnificent wicket, where all four results, including a tie, were possible in the final over.

But the thrill-a-minute final hour was only possible because of an attacking declaration by Australian skipper Meg Lanning and a courageous chase by England’s batters. Despite her team having more to lose than England, Lanning, who had been criticised for not making a sporting declaration during the last Ashes series, had a duty to make the game interesting and delivered. Still, five-days, just like the men’s game, would be great to see, because not every skipper (and that includes the men) are as sporting as Lanning.

But back to the Boston Marathon in 1967.

On the finish line, Switzer told the press she ran because she liked to run and “the longer the better”. Switzer’s marathon that day was monumental, but change took time. It wouldn’t be until 1972 that Boston officially allowed women to compete. It would not be until 1984 that women were allowed to run in the marathon at the Olympics.

Old traditions die hard, but when new traditions are embraced everyone is a winner.