{"id":179768,"date":"2025-09-30T09:38:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T09:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/179768\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T09:38:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T09:38:04","slug":"china-open-injury-retirements-lay-bare-tennis-schedule-complaints-from-top-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/179768\/","title":{"rendered":"China Open injury retirements lay bare tennis schedule complaints from top players"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five of Monday\u2019s 12 matches at the ATP and WTA China Opens<\/a> ended in mid-match retirements, raising more questions of the long-term sustainability of the tennis calendar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The length of the sport\u2019s off-season, and the increased mandatory event requirements on the WTA Tour, formed a large part of the lawsuit launched by the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA) against the sport\u2019s governing bodies in March. Player discontent has intensified over those changes, and it was on show again in Beijing after three out of the eight women\u2019s matches and two of the four men\u2019s finished prematurely.<\/p>\n

Home favorite Zheng Qinwen retired against Czechia\u2019s Linda Noskov\u00e1 in the third set of their match; Camila Osorio<\/a> of Colombia did so after losing the first set 6-0 to world No. 2 Iga \u015awi\u0105tek, and France\u2019s Lo\u00efs Boisson called it a day early in the second set against Emma Navarro of the U.S..<\/p>\n

On the men\u2019s side, Jakub Men\u0161\u00edk, also Czech, lasted just five games before retiring against Australia\u2019s Alex de Minaur, while Italy\u2019s Lorenzo Musetti withdrew down 3-0 in the third set against young American Learner Tien. A day earlier, Paula Badosa of Spain and Czechia\u2019s Barbora Krej\u010d\u00edkov\u00e1 had to retire mid-match, against Czechia\u2019s Karol\u00edna Muchov\u00e1 and McCartney Kessler of the U.S. respectively.<\/p>\n

The average retirement rate on the ATP and WTA Tours between 1973 and 2019 (ATP) and 1975 and 2019 (WTA) was 1.92 percent, according to a study published in 2024. Five of 11 is 45 percent.<\/p>\n

After Osorio\u2019s retirement sent her through, \u015awi\u0105tek said in a news conference that she may \u201chave to choose some tournaments and skip them, even though they are mandatory\u201d in order to remain ready to compete at the highest level.<\/p>\n

\u201cWTA with all these mandatory rules, they made this pretty crazy for us. I don\u2019t think any top player will actually be able to achieve this, playing the six 500 tournaments. It\u2019s just impossible to squeeze it in the schedule.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we have to be smart about it, not really unfortunately care about the rules and just think what\u2019s healthy for us. Yeah, it\u2019s tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

A WTA spokesperson initially declined to comment on \u015awi\u0105tek\u2019s view. The organization later released a statement, in which it said that \u201cathlete welfare is always a top priority\u201d and emphasized the $400 million increase in player compensation that the new rules on mandatory events have underpinned.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe listen closely to players\u2019 views on the tennis calendar, both through our Players\u2019 Council and players\u2019 representatives on the WTA Board. After full consultation with representatives of players and tournaments, we made improvements to our circuit structure in 2024, and these have helped to achieve increases in both athlete compensation and fan engagement,\u201d it said. The structure of the calendar is always under review.<\/p>\n

Zheng, who emphasized that her return to tennis was exploratory after undergoing elbow surgery and that she had expected to feel pain, said that she \u201cwould like to play this match to assess how much recovery is needed in my elbow\u201d in her news conference.<\/p>\n

There have been 10 mandatory 1,000-level events on the WTA Tour since last season, of which the China Open is one. Players are also expected to play six 500-level events. Neither \u015awi\u0105tek, nor her rival for world No. 1, Aryna Sabalenka, last year fulfilled that requirement. They lost ranking points as a result, and those losses led to Sabalenka overtaking \u015awi\u0105tek at the top of the world rankings last fall.<\/p>\n

The PTPA\u2019s medical director, Dr Robby Sikka, said via text message that players being exhausted toward the end of the season naturally leads to more retirements, but added: \u201cThe competition level is more fierce than ever. There are really talented players throughout the draw now \u2014 you\u2019re seeing athletes across all sports improving, developing, and pushing physical limits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is some of the natural risk when you combine increasing velocity and power with end-of-season fatigue.\u201d<\/p>\n

The China Opens continues Tuesday, with the women\u2019s quarterfinals and the men\u2019s semifinals. Play concluded Monday with Daniil Medvedev beating Alexander Zverev, who has recently been taking pain injections for his back.<\/p>\n

Following the men\u2019s final Wednesday, the Shanghai Masters begins. The women\u2019s China Open finishes Sunday, before the Wuhan Open, also a mandatory WTA 1000 event, begins the following day.<\/p>\n

\u00a0(Top photo of Camila Osorio and Iga \u015awi\u0105tek: Robert Prange \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five of Monday\u2019s 12 matches at the ATP and WTA China Opens ended in mid-match retirements, raising more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-179768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}