Tennis is approaching a breaking point and the players are asking for change.
High profile withdrawals and public complaints from Daria Kasatkina, Elina Svitolina, Iga Swiatek and Carlos Alcaraz have turned a private worry about fatigue into a full blown debate about the length and intensity of the season.
Shortening The Season
The demands of tennis are harder than ever before.
Dr Robby Sikka
The 2025 calendar stretched across 47 weeks for many men, beginning with late December team events and ending in late November, leaving minimal true off season and forcing players into an almost constant cycle of travel, training and competition.
Women finished slightly earlier when the WTA Finals concluded on 8 November, and the ITF moved the Billie Jean King Cup Finals to September to ease back to back commitments, but most observers say small tweaks are not enough to solve systemic fatigue.
The Professional Tennis Players Association began legal action in March, accusing the tours of “anti-competitive practices and a blatant disregard for player welfare”, and co founders Novak Djokovic and Vasek Pospisil framed the PTPA as a guardian of player interests in a congested sport.
Practical proposals range from buying back weeks at the end of the year to inserting mini breaks during the season, and the ATP has trimmed the ranking events that count from 19 down to 18 for 2026 to try to lower player load.
There are competing views. “One point that often gets overlooked: players choose their own schedules,” ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi said, and that freedom is presented as unique among professional sports, though critics say mandatory events and commercial pressure complicate that choice.
Fewer Late Nights And More Ball Consistency
Late night matches became symbolic after an Australian Open clash finished at 4:05am, prompting rules to stop matches starting after 11pm, yet players still frequently finish late and then face media, recovery and travel obligations that push real rest into the small hours.
Dr Sikka warned that, because of those routines, “Your day doesn’t end at midnight or 1am, it ends at 3/4am. Then the next day you have to go in and hit,” and he said that culture cannot be romanticized when it harms recovery and performance.
The tours have also been urged to standardize balls between events in a swing, after players pointed to changes in weight and pace as a factor in arm problems, and the ATP expects to reach “full alignment” on ball centralization by 2027.
A PTPA analysis highlighted predictable injury clusters in April, August and October linked to surface swings and quick turnarounds, and this pattern has pushed coaches and medics to argue for simpler, more consistent equipment choices across neighbouring tournaments.
Independent research cited by coverage suggested a player is 25% more likely to be injured during a night session, which is a blunt statistic reminding organisers that scheduling rules can directly change the risk margins of elite competition.
Learn From The NFL And Protect Young Players
Sports scientists say tennis should borrow from American team sports, where data led rule changes and protective investments have extended careers and boosted the quality of play, creating a commercial case for prioritising athlete health as much as entertainment value.
Stephen Smith of Kitman Labs said, “NFL has made many rule changes based on empirical evidence and data information,” and he argued that putting resources into protecting athletes has become the gold standard that drives both safety and profitability.
Baseball and other sports have introduced workload limits for young players, and former champion Dominic Thiem has warned that decades of early repetition contribute to chronic wrist and arm problems later in careers, calling for smarter load management from youth onward.
Thiem has said, “It shouldn’t be too difficult – the same ball for clay, the same for hard and the same for grass,” arguing that more consistent equipment would ease transitions between surfaces and potentially reduce upper body injuries that shorten careers.
Stars such as Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka are pressing Grand Slams for a bigger revenue share and meaningful consultation over calendar length and scheduling, while Taylor Fritz said it was “absurd” he could only take one week off before the 2025 season.
Dr Sikka added that the PTPA has provided data analysis to “well over 100 players” to help guide recovery and welfare, stressing the mission is to make competitors the healthiest versions of themselves rather than relying on a small handful of generational outliers.
Change will be complex because governance is divided among four Grand Slams, the ATP, WTA and the ITF, yet the conversation is shifting from private complaints to public proposals, legal challenges and technical fixes that could make professional tennis more sustainable.
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Christoph Friedrich is a German tennis player and coach currently residing in Oakland, California. He began his tennis journey at the age of eight and has since dedicated his life to the sport. After working as a tennis coach and hitting partner in New York City for eight years, Christoph decided to share his knowledge and experience with tennis players around the world by creating the My Tennis Expert blog. His goal is to make tennis education accessible to everyone and help players select the best equipment for their game, from racquets and strings to shoes and overgrips. Christoph's extensive research and expertise in tennis technology make him a valuable resource for players of all levels.
