{"id":861382,"date":"2026-08-17T13:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T13:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/861382\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T13:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T13:56:12","slug":"break-point-why-tennis-needs-to-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/861382\/","title":{"rendered":"Break point: why tennis needs to change"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty worrying, the state of men\u2019s tennis, especially right now,\u201d said British star Jack Draper, announcing his withdrawal from Wimbledon<\/a> this year due to injury. \u201cThe amount of injuries, especially young players.\u201d Draper thinks \u201cthe tour and the calendar have to adapt if any of us are gonna achieve some sort of longevity\u201d.<\/p>\n

The unrelenting schedule of the ATP Tour has meant Draper\u2019s world ranking has dropped from no. 4 to no. 147, and he faces the prospect of having to qualify for this year\u2019s US Open<\/a>, where he was a semi-finalist two years ago. He has missed most of the last year with the injury to his serving arm.<\/p>\n

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Players on both the men\u2019s ATP and women\u2019s WTA tours have long complained of the hectic playing schedule and called for reforms to ease the workload. But calendar alterations are just one of the many challenges players are facing.<\/p>\n

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Injuries \u2018steadily increasing\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is difficult to remember a time when each tournament\u2019s build-up was not punctuated\u201d with withdrawals like that of men\u2019s world no. 1 Jannik Sinner<\/a> from this week\u2019s Cincinnati Open, said The Telegraph<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The calendar is to blame. Of the nine Masters 1000 events \u2013 one step below Grand Slams in prestige and usually lasting seven days \u2013 seven of them have \u201cexpanded to a 12-day format\u201d. And punishments for opting out of the \u201cgruelling\u201d schedule don\u2019t help players. Barring injury, they must play a minimum of eight such tournaments or \u201chave their bonus pool reduced for each subsequent tournament missed\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Optimists would argue that top players\u2019 absences give opportunities to younger and lower-ranked players, but fans have started to \u201craise concerns\u201d about their favourites \u201cregularly missing events\u201d. Clearly, the ATP Tour has \u201cits own interests at heart\u201d, attempting to \u201csqueeze out every revenue source possible\u201d.<\/p>\n

This has impacted player health. \u201cSurvival of the fittest has become an apt metaphor for life on the tennis circuit in recent months,\u201d said The Times<\/a>. Injuries are \u201cinevitable\u201d in any sporting arena, but at the top level of tennis they are \u201csteadily increasing\u201d. University of Barcelona<\/a> data from 2024 found that match retirements had increased by at least 25% and 50% on the ATP and WTA Tours respectively since 1999, while the Professional Tennis Players\u2019 Association found that the average distance covered by players on court has increased \u201cby more than 50 per cent since 2015\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Players must contend with a \u201clack of recovery time and accumulated stress between matches\u201d. In training, they can record performance \u201cto the nth degree\u201d with trackers and advanced technology, but these are banned in Grand Slam tournaments. However, \u201cthe stress of real competition is far greater\u201d<\/p>\n

Counterintuitively, players\u2019 improved athleticism is also causing issues, said El Pais<\/a>. In both men\u2019s and women\u2019s competitions, the physicality has \u201cevolved exponentially compared with two or three decades ago\u201d, meaning players can hit the ball harder, and have better equipment with which to do so. This places even greater strain when on the receiving end, and the rules are not adapting to accommodate this.<\/p>\n

\u2018Highly vulnerable to match-fixing\u2019<\/p>\n

Environmental changes are also overlooked too, said the Financial Times<\/a>. \u201cExtreme heat is affecting tennis tournaments globally\u201d, particularly at the French Open<\/a> in May, and different organisations follow different rules to combat it. Until this year, the decision to suspend ATP matches due to weather conditions was \u201cat the discretion of tournament supervisors\u201d. Now a new \u201cheat rule\u201d is applied.<\/p>\n

In addition to the playing schedule and more common heatwave conditions, tennis is \u201chighly vulnerable to match-fixing\u201d, said The Athletic<\/a>. Top players may earn \u201cmore than $20 million in prize money each season\u201d, but the majority of lower-ranked players \u201clive a hand-to-mouth existence\u201d on tour. \u201cFixers thrive on this inconsistency.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scoring system means players \u201ccan be convinced to corrupt matches whilst still winning them\u201d: they can throw the opening set, or a particular service game, before \u201creturning to playing at their best\u201d. In December, French player Quentin Folliot was \u201csuspended for 20 years on fixing charges, while Chinese player Pang Renlong was \u201cbarred for 12 years for separate offences\u201d.<\/p>\n

Like in other sports, change in tennis \u201ctakes time\u201d, said The Independent<\/a>. But unlike in others, tennis essentially has \u201cseven governing bodies\u201d, with the ATP, WTA, World Tennis and the four historic Grand Slam events all claiming certain jurisdiction. \u201cGetting everyone around the same table is challenging enough\u201d, let alone them agreeing on reforms to the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s pretty worrying, the state of men\u2019s tennis, especially right now,\u201d said British star Jack Draper, announcing his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":861383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-861382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861382","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=861382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}