"The professional tennis calendar might make sense if this was still the slow-paced lawn game of the previous century. But it isn't, and hasn't been for a long time. Every passing week intensifies the mismatch between the tour calendar and the bodily demands of pro tennis in 2025. In the final weeks of the season, a slew of top players have retired from matches, complained about conditions, and declared the calendar unrealistic."
"Athletically speaking, the players run faster and swing harder; they also sustain that intensity for even longer periods of time. They are moving explosively, to strike a fast-moving projectile hundreds of times, sometimes for three to five hours, with no substitutions, mostly outdoors, on a warming planet, in the hottest seasons, for 11 months a year. Pick even three of those features, and you probably have a recipe for burnout."
"The number of retirements, withdrawals and injuries this year has been shocking. With seven retirements or walkovers at the Shanghai Masters over the past week, there have now been 41 retirements and walkovers at the ATP Masters 1000 events this year, including nine in Madrid and eight in Cincinnati. On Monday last week at the China Open in Beijing, a combined WTA 1000 and ATP 500 event, five of the 12 matches ended in retirements."
The professional tennis calendar remains rooted in an earlier era and no longer aligns with contemporary athletic realities. Players run faster, swing harder and sustain higher-intensity play for longer durations, often engaging in multi-hour matches without substitutions. Most competition occurs outdoors, frequently in the hottest seasons and on a warming planet, across an 11-month season. The combination of prolonged intensity, heat exposure and dense scheduling increases risks of injury, retirements and mental burnout. Recent tournaments have shown a marked rise in retirements and walkovers, indicating substantial physical tolls and insufficient prioritization of player welfare.
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