{"id":84785,"date":"2025-08-15T13:01:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T13:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/84785\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T13:01:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T13:01:09","slug":"australian-open-tournament-director-proposes-radical-changes-to-the-atp-tour-schedule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/84785\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Open tournament director proposes radical changes to the ATP Tour schedule"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A lot has been made of the hectic ATP schedule recently, as players continue to campaign for change.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, world number two Carlos Alcaraz said he wanted the ATP to remove events<\/a> from the schedule, so players can have more time to rest and recover.<\/p>\n

The Spaniard has been vocal about his concerns over the schedule, suggesting the concentration of events would lead to players getting injured.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Alcaraz may have been right, as Russia\u2019s Karen Khachanov suffered a back injury<\/a> recently, a problem that may well have been caused by the 29-year-old\u2019s quick turnaround from Toronto to Cincinnati.<\/p>\n

\"KarenPhoto by Matthew Stockman\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

After the match, Khachanov suggested it may be time for the ATP<\/a> to look at the schedule, as he now hopes to recover from injury with the US Open fast approaching.<\/p>\n

Khachanov and Alcaraz<\/a> aren\u2019t the only players complaining, as it\u2019s clear to see that something needs to be done about the schedule.<\/p>\n

Weighing in with his thoughts, Australian Open<\/a> tournament director Craig Tiley has proposed some radical changes to the tennis schedule.<\/p>\n

Craig Tiley proposes radical changes which would give players an \u2018eight-week off-season\u2019<\/p>\n

During the latest episode of \u2018The Tennis\u2019, Tiley shared an idea for the tennis schedule he and the other Grand Slam tournament directors have been working on.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been working, the Grand Slams particularly have been working, to have a content at the top end of the tree, the top 100 players,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere it\u2019s very specific about the length and time of the events, the cities you play, eight to nine week proper off-season, strong narrative for the fans. Governed as one, you have the four Slams, another 11, 12 events, one team event, so you\u2019re maybe playing 16, 17 events.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you have a feed-in system, where there are several times in the year, like in golf, where you compete to get your card, you compete to get yourself in the top 32, top 16, 56, whatever that number is going to be, then the fan kind of understands where you\u2019re going, what it means.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, as a player, I\u2019ve got that period I\u2019m playing, then I\u2019ve got that mid-season rest period, I\u2019ve got the end of the season. There\u2019s too much sideshow stuff going on right now, and we\u2019ve got to deal with the core.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AustralianPhoto by Graham Denholm\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Tiley proceeded to outline what the \u2018core\u2019 issues are, comparing how tennis and golf differ in that regard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe core is to get the narrative right, get the tour right, particularly on the top end, get the feeder system right. Everyone has a role to play. There are probably too many people involved in making decisions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, you\u2019ve got your four pillars in the sport, like you have in golf. The four masters [majors] in golf, every golfer, it\u2019s absolutely history and tradition that they compete in the four masters. Similar to tennis, you have the four majors.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the difference in golf is that those four masters don\u2019t drive the economic powerhouse of the sport. They\u2019re only about 10% of the economic value. The other 90% is the PGA Tour. In tennis, it\u2019s about 55- 60% driven by the four majors, so it\u2019s an imbalance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe commercials of the tour need to pick up. But how that gets done is by creating an aggregate, by all coming together. It\u2019s hard to do it by yourself. There\u2019s a lot of good work that\u2019s been done by the tours over the years, but probably not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 63-year-old believes player welfare has been \u2018forgotten\u2019 over the years as the schedule became more packed, which is partly why he is suggesting reform.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat gets forgotten in the player voice is player welfare, what gets forgotten in the player voice is the time to regroup, there\u2019s not a proper off-season. The element of player welfare is too low down on the priority list when we make decisions about the schedule,\u201d said Tiley.<\/p>\n

\"CarlosPhoto by Clive Brunskill\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, there are commercial reasons for doing this. This is indicative of the poor organisation of our sport. We have seven governing bodies, each fighting for their own territory and their own position in the calendar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe coordination amongst those governing bodies is not at the level that it needs to be to be successful from a player\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a player goes into a longer Masters 1000 event and you\u2019re adding 21 days to the calendar, players want to play exhibitions in December, then they turn around a week later and start the year again, it\u2019s not right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tiley certainly has some big plans, but what would his new schedule look like?<\/p>\n

What could Craig Tiley\u2019s ATP schedule look like?<\/p>\n

The South African didn\u2019t go into too much detail about how his ideal schedule would look, but with what he mentioned, it could be something like this.<\/p>\n

EventMonthTournamentSurfaceTier1JanuaryUnited CupHardUnited Cup2JanuaryAustralian OpenHardGrand SlamFeeder-eventsJanuary-February\u2013Hard\/ClayATP 250\/5003MarchIndian WellsHardMasters 10004MarchMiami OpenHardMasters 1000Feeder-eventsMarch-April\u2013ClayATP 250\/5005AprilMonte-Carlo MastersClayMasters 10006April Madrid OpenClayMasters 10007MayItalian OpenClayMasters 10008May-JuneFrench OpenClayGrand SlamFeeder-eventsJune\u2013GrassATP 250\/500Mid-season breakJune-July\u2013\u2013\u20139JulyWimbledonGrassGrand SlamFeeder-eventsJuly\u2013HardATP 250\/50010AugustCanadian OpenHardMasters 100011AugustCincinnati OpenHardMasters 100012August-SeptemberUS OpenHardGrand SlamFeeder-eventsSeptember\u2013HardATP 250\/50013September- OctoberShanghai MastersHardMasters 100014OctoberParis MastersHardMasters 100015October-NovemberATP FinalsHardATP FinalsOff-seasonNovember-January\u2013\u2013\u2013What Craig Tiley\u2019s ATP schedule could look like<\/p>\n

Only time will tell if Tiley\u2019s ideas are ever put into practice, but it will certainly be something to look out for in the future.<\/p>\n

The stars of the ATP Tour are currently competing at the Cincinnati Open Masters 1000 event, which is set to finish on Monday, August 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lot has been made of the hectic ATP schedule recently, as players continue to campaign for change.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[430,12083,58787,99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-84785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp","9":"tag-australian-open","10":"tag-craig-tiley","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84785","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=84785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}