Bill Simmons Thinks Men's Tennis Needs To Change Rules

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – OCTOBER 07: HBO’s Bill Simmons speaks onstage during “Ahead of the Curve – The Future of Sports Journalism” at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on October 7, 2015 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Mike Windle/Getty Images for Vanity Fair)Mike Windle/Getty Images

Bill Simmons Thinks Men's Tennis Needs To Change Rules

Originally posted on The Spun | By Andrew Holleran | Last updated Sep 8, 2026 10:11 AM ET

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Bill Simmons wants to see men’s tennis changing its rules.

The U.S. Open is in the middle of its second week. The fourth and final Grand Slam of the 2026 tennis season is always an exciting one. The U.S. Open is known for its late-night matches, as the Grand Slam has both a day session and a night session. The night session at Arthur Ashe begins at 7 p.m. E.T. There’s a men’s match and a women’s match. The second match of the night often doesn’t begin until after 10 p.m. E.T. Some matches will go past 1 a.m.

Are these tennis matches too long?

Bill Simmons believes that men’s tennis needs a rules change.

Simmons believes that tennis has “lost the narrative” with how long tennis matches are, especially on the men’s side.

“I’ve watched tennis my whole life. I’ve played tennis; I love tennis. Tennis matches are too long,” Simmons declared. “We’ve lost the narrative with this. These guys are too good. The rallies and the points, these matches are four-and-a-half hours routinely now. And I just think it’s absurd, and I’ve talked about this forever. I don’t think anything should be four-and-a-half hours. Literally anything, movies, sporting events, a dinner, anything. I don’t want to do anything for four-and-a-half hours that’s supposed to be entertainment.”

@BillSimmons: Are tennis matches too long? pic.twitter.com/1HvrdAW0C1
— The Ringer (@ringer) September 7, 2026

Simmons pushes for rules change

Simmons thinks that you could go from playing to first six games to first to give games on the men’s side.

“All the tennis purists are going to be like, ‘that’s crazy, (expletive) you, go (expletive) yourself.’ I get it. But I think they should seriously think about changing the sets from six to five for winning the set… whatever we have to do to not make this four-and-a-half-hours. I just don’t think it’s that entertaining, and I like tennis,” he added.

“The whole time I’m like, ‘Why the (expletive) is this four-and-a-half-hours?’ It’s absurd. When the baseball games got too long, what did we do? We’re like, this is too long; let’s get a pitch clock; we gotta fix this. In tennis, it’s like Djokovic is about to have a stroke on the court; this is great! What drama, he’s dying. What’s fun about this?”

Does tennis need to consider a rules change?

This article first appeared on The Spun and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: