When Daria Kasatkina cut her 2025 season short in October, the former world number eight described how she had “hit a wall”.<\/p>\n
“The schedule is too much. Mentally and emotionally I’m at breaking point and, sadly, I’m not alone,” she wrote.<\/p>\n
Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina, a two-time Wimbledon semi-finalist, had already announced she was not in “the mental space” to continue, while reigning Grand Slam champions Iga Swiatek and Carlos Alcaraz believe the calendar is too long. <\/p>\n
The topic continues to be debated as the world’s leading tennis players reconvene in Australia for the start of the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
A slightly longer off-season than 2025 has been welcomed. Nevertheless, several weeks is not seen as enough time for proper recuperation before preparations begin for an 11-month campaign regarded as among the most onerous in professional sport.<\/p>\n
“The demands of tennis are harder than ever before,” Dr Robby Sikka, medical director at the Professional Tennis Players’ Association (PTPA) co-founded by Novak Djokovic, told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
“Matches and rallies are longer, players are faster, they’re hitting the ball harder.<\/p>\n
“We owe it to our players to protect them and give them a more sustainable sport.”<\/p>\n
So what is being done and what further steps could be taken?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Daria Kasatkina cut her 2025 season short in October, the former world number eight described how she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-383860","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}