Tennis Exhausted: How to Solve the Extensive Season and Fatigue?

The Extended Tennis Season: An Unsustainable Challenge?

The 2024 professional tennis season officially ended on December 22nd, with Joao Fonseca taking the title at the ATP Next Gen Finals in Saudi Arabia. However, the 2025 season began on December 27th with the United Cup in Australia. This tight schedule has generated criticism about the length and demands of the calendar.

I don’t know how the ’25 season starts in ’24. It’s a joke.

Jordan Thompson

The short break between tournaments has been a recurring theme. The brevity between the Billie Jean King Cup and the Davis Cup, as well as between the WTA and ATP Finals, underscores the lack of recovery time for players. Alex de Minaur attributed his early exit from the French Open to “exhaustion,” while Iga Swiatek criticized the intensity of the calendar. Several tennis players, such as Frances Tiafoe, Danielle Collins, Jack Draper, and Daria Kasatkina, ended their seasons early due to injuries and mental fatigue.

The truth is that I’ve hit a wall and can’t continue. I need a break.

Daria Kasatkina

The conversation about the length and intensity of the tennis season will continue as players prepare for the 2026 season. The big question is: Will there be changes?

“I’ve hit a wall and can’t go on. I need a break,” Daria Kasatkina wrote in a social media post in October.

Taylor Fritz had an outstanding season in 2024, reaching the semi-finals at the Australian Open and Wimbledon, and reaching his first Grand Slam final at the US Open. Despite his achievements, including two ATP titles and an Olympic bronze medal, the celebration time was minimal. Fritz highlighted the lack of a real pre-season for elite players, who, due to their success, see their season extended.

There is no off-season, and if you’re a top player, you actually have even less of an off-season.

Taylor Fritz

Fritz mentioned that his break between the end of the 2024 season and the start of the 2025 season was approximately three weeks, time that he must dedicate to training. Many players take advantage of this time to implement technical changes or changes in their team, which underlines the importance of this period despite its brevity.

Novak Djokovic won the Hellenic ATP 250 Championship on Saturday, but played few matches this year and chose not to participate in this week’s ATP Finals citing an ongoing shoulder injury.

Novak Djokovic, who has spoken on the subject in the past, only played the important events this summer, skipping all ATP tournaments in June, July, and August, prioritizing winning his 25th Grand Slam title and spending time with his family. Tours require players to participate in a certain number of tournaments each year. Qualified ATP players must play in the four majors, eight Masters 1000 level events, and five 500 level tournaments, including one after the US Open. Top WTA players must also participate in the Grand Slams, in addition to 10 1000 level tournaments and six 500 level events. Seven of the 1000 level tournaments now last 12 days, with several recently extended from one week. A player can be exempted from a major or 1000-level tournaments due to injury, but if a WTA player does not meet the six-tournament threshold for 500-level events, ranking points will be deducted. Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff, Amanda Anisimova, and Madison Keys lost points at the end of the 2024 season because they did not play in the required number of tournaments. Swiatek, who had been number 1 at the time, dropped to number 2. ATP players who do not meet the criteria could face reductions in end-of-season bonus pool earnings. Many of the best players have been clear about the impact of the length and requirements of the calendar, especially as they often reach the final stages of the tournaments in which they play. Swiatek, who had been playing in one of the matches shortened by injury at the China Open in September, was quick to blame the schedule after Camila Osorio, her opponent, retired after the first set of their match. She told reporters that she would probably “have to choose some tournaments and skip them, even if they are mandatory” in the future.

The WTA, with all these mandatory rules, made it quite difficult for us.

Iga Swiatek

Swiatek lost in her next match, then reached the quarterfinals in Wuhan before failing to advance from the group stage at the WTA Finals.

Iga Swiatek played in 80 matches this season, the most on tour.

The WTA and others in the sport have repeatedly pointed to extended 1000-level tournaments as part of how it could ensure equal prize money at tournaments with their male counterparts.

I always hear shouts for more prize money, more prize money and this is what the tour has to [do] — to increase the prize money, they have had to extend the duration of these tournaments.

Anne Keothavong

Gauff, the world number 3, did not disagree with that argument, but said it was “impossible” to meet all the requirements in a given year.

I guess from a business point of view, it might make sense, but from the player’s health point of view, I really don’t agree with that.

Coco Gauff

Gauff played in three 500-level tournaments in 2025, as did Sabalenka, Swiatek, and Anisimova. Keys played in four. However, that didn’t result in fewer matches. Swiatek played in 80 matches this season, the most on the tour. Sabalenka appeared in 76 (as did WTA Finals champion Elena Rybakina), Gauff in 65, Anisimova in 63, and Keys in 53. The situation of the best players was fully displayed at the Shanghai Masters in October. Many complained about the brutal heat and humidity and others felt the weight of the long season. Carlos Alcaraz withdrew before the tournament began due to a left ankle injury. Jannik Sinner retired from his third-round match due to cramps. Djokovic vomited during his round of 32 match and needed treatment for a back injury during his semi-final defeat. The final featured Valentin Vacherot, then ranked 204th in the world and the ninth alternate in the qualifying draw, against his cousin Arthur Rinderknech, then ranked 40th. An incredible story, no doubt, but perhaps not the title clash the ATP was hoping for at one of its flagship events.

Jessica Pegula has said that she doesn’t like the US Open’s change to a 15-day tournament this year.

The ATP announced that it would add another Masters 1000 level tournament to its calendar starting in 2028, in Saudi Arabia. This will raise the total number in the category to 10, with nine of them mandatory. (Monte Carlo remains an optional event). It is not clear exactly when the tournament will take place during the already packed calendar, or if women will also be included. The French Open, the Australian Open, and the US Open have added an extra day of play to the main phase in recent years, changing the start day from Monday to Sunday. Several players expressed their opposition in New York this year when the US Open implemented it for the first time.

I’m really not a fan.

Jessica Pegula

Brad Stine, Tommy Paul’s long-time coach, acknowledges that the debate around the length of the season is nothing new. He has been a coach at the professional level since 1990, when he began working with Jim Courier, and he has heard it all over the years. While Stine believes that the ATP and WTA should get rid of the “mandatory” distinction in tournaments and ensure that there is one or two weeks of rest after each Grand Slam, he also believes that players should be less “paranoid” about losing ranking points and skipping tournaments whenever they feel they need a break.

Nobody is forced to play. You can take time off whenever you want to take time off.

Brad Stine

Furthermore, he believes that many of the players undermine their concerns by playing in high-income exhibitions during the off-season, or other breaks in the schedule.

There doesn’t seem to be a shortage of players looking to play in those events.

Brad Stine

Alcaraz, one of the most vocal defenders of the need for a shorter season, played in the lucrative Six Kings Slam in October and is scheduled to play in several other exhibition events in December, including in New York, Newark, and Miami. He was quick to dismiss the correlation.

It’s a different format, a different situation to play exhibitions than official tournaments, 15, 16 days in a row, with so much concentration and physical demand.

Carlos Alcaraz

While it seems that most players believe something has to change, the details present a challenge.

It just needs to be shortened. It’s too much.

Taylor Fritz

He added that he did not believe that changes were coming.

I don’t think they’re listening to us.

Taylor Fritz

And it’s not that simple. While it might seem logical, for example, to end the season after the US Open with the year-end finals shortly after, that leaves 12 WTA and 13 ATP tournaments (plus the Billie Jean King Cup, the Davis Cup and the Laver Cup) currently on the books without a place on the calendar. Organizations and host cities pay a premium license fee to host each event, with prices varying depending on the level of the tournament, and they typically sign multi-year agreements to do so. While the changes have been few and far between, there have been some. The Billie Jean King Cup final, which was played in November last year and in recent seasons, was moved to September to allow for a longer off-season for WTA players this year. It was also held in Shenzhen, China, for the first time, allowing many players to play smoothly on the Asian tour immediately afterwards. (However, the playoffs to determine the qualifying teams for the 2026 tournament will take place from November 14 to 16 and will feature 21 countries). The Davis Cup maintained its previous time slot and is scheduled to begin on November 18 in Bologna, Italy, and conclude on November 23. There have been discussions about major changes. In 2024, the four Grand Slams initiated initial conversations for a “Premier Tour”, with an annual calendar that would consist of the majors, approximately 10 more events, and a year-end final. In response, the WTA and ATP proposed a similar version of the idea to the Slams, in an effort to “restructure the sport”, in the spring of this year. That plan would also include the four majors, 10 level 1000 events, 17 level 500 events for the WTA and 16 for the ATP, and a reduction of the level 250 tournaments through the repurchase of licenses. Ultimately, it would decrease the number of tournaments between the two organizations from 118 to approximately 75. But the WTA and ATP failed to sell the idea to the Grand Slams, reportedly in part due to the proposed board structure to oversee the new venture. But while drastically transforming the sport might be off the table, for now at least, there are other, smaller ways to address the problem. Former world number 1 Andy Roddick contemplated moving the order of events in the autumn calendar on a recent episode of his podcast “Served”. The WTA and ATP are no strangers to the complaints and concerns of their players. In a statement provided to ESPN, the WTA called the well-being of athletes a “top priority” and said that the organization is in constant communication with the players, including through the players’ council and representatives of the WTA Board. The organization added that it was “committed to keeping [the] tour structure under review”. When asked for comment, the ATP directed ESPN to an August interview with chairman Andrea Gaudenzi. In that, Gaudenzi called the schedule “complex” but said an ATP goal was to “extend the off-season.” However, he added that the ATP was one of many organizing bodies in professional tennis with a voice on the schedule and emphasized the individual nature of tennis. But it’s clear, no matter how separated the players and the powers that be may seem to be on the schedule, the current situation is tenuous at best. Djokovic, who spent several years on the ATP player council and founded the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA) in 2020, has long been a fierce critic of the current and evolving calendar and, according to his estimation, has been speaking out against it for “more than 15 years”. But even he acknowledged that it was a “very complex” issue when asked about it before the Shanghai Masters event in October. Ultimately, he said, if the players wanted to see a change, they would simply have to do more and learn the various layers of the tennis ecosystem.