By Amelia | Tennis Correspondent, Sportspherearena
Tennis correspondent covering the full ATP and WTA circuit — sharp, on-the-ground reporting from every Grand Slam and major tour event.
Rennae Stubbs did not waste words.
After the Australian coach and ESPN commentator suggested a 10-point tiebreak for any fifth set at the US Open to stop matches running past 2 a.m., one reply cut through the noise:
“Cancel all women’s matches. More time for the real players.”
Stubbs answered in one line.
I really hope you don’t have daughters or granddaughters.
That was it. No thread. No explanation. Just the line that landed hardest.
The context was clear. The 2026 US Open had already delivered a string of absurdly late finishes — 2:01 a.m., 12:26 a.m., 1:55 a.m., 2:15 a.m., 2:07 a.m. — before Ben Shelton and Carlos Alcaraz pushed the record to 3:33 a.m. Stubbs’ proposal was practical: if a match reaches two sets all, play a 10-point tiebreak instead of another full set. Martina Navratilova had already called the current schedule “not sustainable.” Stubbs tried to offer a fix. Someone decided the real problem was the existence of the women’s draw.
The reply was never about scheduling. It was about whose tennis counts.
Stubbs has spent years defending the women’s game in public. This response fitted the pattern: short, personal, and impossible to misread.
The same tournament also saw Serena and Venus Williams return to Grand Slam doubles for the first time since 2022. They lost a three-hour thriller to Maya Joint and Hao-Ching Chan 6-3, 6-7(6), 7-6(7) on Arthur Ashe, but the night still felt like an event. Serena later spoke about how much it meant to share the court with her sister while her daughter Olympia watched and celebrated every point, win or lose.
Two stories ran side by side in New York: one about a coach refusing to let a casual dismissal of women’s tennis pass, and another about two of the greatest players the sport has produced still choosing to compete together.
Only one of them needed a one-line reply.
