Similar to football, top players criticize the busy schedule.
German tennis star Alexander Zverev has expressed his displeasure at the long tennis season. At the Laver Cup in Berlin, Zverev said that the professional organization ATP “doesn’t care what the players say about the burden” because it’s “about the money.”
The ATP season is “the longest in sports” with “unnecessarily many tournaments”. In 2024, there will be 68 events on the tour. The season begins in December of the previous year with the preparation tournaments for the Australian Open and ends with the Davis Cup Finals in Malaga at the end of November.
When asked whether there could be a strike, as is currently being discussed more and more often in professional soccer, the world number two said: “We can’t strike, we’ll be punished if we don’t play tournaments.”
World number three Carlos Alcaraz, who will have played 50 singles matches by 2024, was even more outspoken: “The program will kill us.” There are “so many good players currently injured.” He, too, has sometimes not wanted to play in a tournament.
