JIMMY VAN ALLEN concocted the tie-break in tennis after watching Dick Leach and Dick Dell grind out a 3-6, 49-47, 22-20 win over their opponents in 1967. While the idea of a tie-break to finish a set is now accepted, players have had to complete 12 games first. Under the ATP proposals, however, a tie-break will be held instead of a third set.

Bowls has had such a system since 2001. In the best-of-five-sets format, a match could last between half an hour and 4½ hours. Bringing in a tie-break after two sets has made matches more predictable in length and even more exciting, but arguably less fair.

Football has long grappled with the best way to end a match, experimenting with golden goals and penalty shoot-outs. And if it had not been for Jonny Wilkinson’s last-minute dropped goal, the 2003 rugby union World Cup could have been decided by Jason Leonard’s boot in a dropped-goal shoot-out.

Other sports are also going for shorter matches. Twenty20 cricket, the game you can watch between meals without ruining your appetite, has brought in new audiences. Table tennis, which any schoolboy knows is first to 21, is only the first to 11 these days.

Squash has experimented with dropping the first-to-nine game, in which only the server scores, to a first-to-15 format in which the winner of each rally wins a point. Badminton is also looking to change the way games are scored.

Even when a tie-break or a shortening is not possible, administrators have tried to speed up games. Snooker’s Premier League limits players to 25 seconds per shot, which has been criticised, unsurprisingly, by Steve Davis, the steady former world champion.

But for those who like their sports to drag on, the final of the real tennis world championship will still be played over the best of 13 sets in April. Not surprisingly, television executives are hardly fighting over the rights.

• Tomas Berdych, the unseeded player from the Czech Republic, beat Ivan Ljubicic, of Croatia, in the final of the Paris Masters 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 6-4. Ljubicic still reached the Masters Cup.

  Singles qualifiers for Masters Cup in Shanghai (Nov 13-20)

  1. Roger Federer (Switz)

  2. Rafael Nadal (Spain)

  3. Andy Roddick (US)

  4. Lleyton Hewitt (Aus)

  5. Andre Agassi (US)

  6. Guillermo Coria (Arg)

  7. Nikolay Davydenko (Russ)

  8. Ivan Ljubicic (Cro)
  
  Alternative: Gaston Gaudio (Arg) *Marat Safin (Russ) qualified but has a knee injury