The relentless grind of professional tennis is pushing its biggest stars to breaking point, with a growing number of top players being forced off the court due to severe injuries and mental exhaustion.
A Season of Collapse
Elina Svitolina became the latest high-profile casualty, making the difficult decision to end her 2025 season prematurely in September. The world number 14 cited overwhelming burnout from the constant travel, competition and emotional strain that defines the modern tennis tour.
She is far from alone in her struggle. This year has seen an alarming pattern of physical and mental ailments affecting the sport's elite. Prominent talents including Jack Draper, Zheng Qinwen, Holger Rune and Arthur Fils have all been sidelined with significant long-term injuries.
Meanwhile, other stars like Ons Jabeur – who has since announced her pregnancy – and Daria Kasatkina have felt compelled to step away to protect their mental health, highlighting a deepening crisis within the sport.
The Impossible Calendar
At the heart of the problem lies tennis's punishing schedule. The current off-season offers players just five weeks and four days of rest, running from 24 November until 1 January. While not every male player competed in the season-ending Davis Cup, the brutal ten-and-a-half month campaign exceeds the length of most other professional sports seasons.
Complaints about the overcrowded calendar are nothing new, dating back decades. However, meaningful reform remains elusive in a sport governed by seven separate bodies, including the ATP, WTA, ITF and the four Grand Slam tournaments. Each organisation fiercely protects its own interests, often at the expense of a unified approach to player welfare.
The schedule has, if anything, become more restrictive. Many top players argue that the expansion of ATP and WTA 1000 events to 12-day tournaments is increasing physical strain. Furthermore, the introduction of financial and ranking point penalties for skipping events, coupled with plans to add another lucrative ATP Masters 1000 event in Saudi Arabia by 2028, adds to the congestion.
Conflicting Interests and Hypocrisy
The situation is complicated by the differing needs of players. Lower-ranked competitors, who earn less and play fewer matches, often require more tournament opportunities to make a living, creating a tension with the needs of top stars.
The issue of player scheduling has sparked debate, particularly around lucrative exhibition matches. Carlos Alcaraz provides a prime example. The world number one was forced to withdraw from the Davis Cup finals due to a hamstring injury sustained during the ATP Finals, after contesting 81 official matches this year.
Despite this, Alcaraz still plans to fit in at least three exhibitions in the US and South Korea before the Australian Open in January. Like many players, he argues that exhibitions offer significant financial reward for minimal physical effort compared to regular tour events.
This puts players at odds with administrators like ATP Chair Andrea Gaudenzi. In a recent press conference, the former player expressed sympathy but insisted players must schedule more intelligently, focusing on major tournaments and resisting the lure of exhibition fees.
This stance has been criticised as hypocritical, given the ATP's own expansion of Masters 1000 events is largely motivated by increased ticket revenue, despite player complaints about the format.
A Call for Radical Reform
The fundamental problem remains unchanged after thirty years: the tennis calendar is cluttered, inefficient and broken. Many believe the only solution is for the governing bodies to collaborate in tearing it down and rebuilding it from scratch.
An ideal calendar would prioritise player health, creating a more logical flow of events worldwide while addressing other critical issues like protection from extreme weather and standardising court speeds and balls.
These decisions need greater input from the players themselves, balancing legitimate workload concerns with sufficient earning opportunities for professionals at all levels. However, as long as the sport's governance remains deeply fragmented, meaningful change appears to be a distant hope, leaving players to continue bearing the brunt of an unsustainable system.
