In one of the latest episodes of his podcast Served With, the former American tennis player Andy Roddick touched on many interesting topics, including the much-criticized seasonal schedule and how tennis has a decidedly intense calendar that many players have complained about, one above all Carlos Alcaraz.
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Roddick instead praised Iga Swiatek who complained about the schedule more than any other player but was brave enough to make the decision to stop, skipping the entire Asian Tour and consequently losing the WTA ranking throne to Aryna Sabalenka. In the same speech about the tennis schedule and the complaints of tennis players about the density of events in 11 months of season, Roddick harshly attacked (without directly quoting him) Carlitos Alcaraz, balancing criticism towards the Spaniard with praise for Swiatek
"Iga has simply made it clear that he is in a state of burnout, in a situation of strong psychological and physical stress. A lot of people talk about how the tennis season is too long and then they add 17 exhibitions in the week before some other event. That's their choice. I will never beat anyone for managing or mismanaging a schedule. But it's nice when someone says there's this big scheduling problem that we all talk about and I back off at this stage of my career. And they do. I like the fact that the long-term vision seems to be the driving factor right now for Swiatek," said Roddick.
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Many have read in the American's words a dig aimed at Carlos Alcaraz, mainly, especially because the young Spanish playerhas argued at length in recent weeks that the tennis calendar is too demanding, but then flew to Riyadh to play the millionaire Six Kings Slam, in good company, too, since there were Novak Djokovic, Jannik Sinner, Daniil Medvedev, Rafael Nadal and Holger Rune. Roddick's thought is that if you want there to be significant change, those who complain should then practice what they preach. A more than fair thought, that of the American.
But why did Roddick indirectly attack Alcaraz? What were the young Spaniard's complaints? He didn't even have time to celebrate the title won in Beijing that Carlos Alcaraz immediately had to reach Shanghai. The Spaniard has expressed on several occasions his harsh point of view on the busy calendar that characterizes the ATP Tour and, during the Media Day of the Shanghai Rolex Masters, the 4-time Slam champion returned to talk about the subject explaining everything he had to do in a short time after the final of the China Open.
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"I've said it many times, the tennis schedule is very tight. We have to get used to it. We finished the Beijing final at 8:30/9:00 p.m., a three-hour match and then I didn't have time to do anything else. I arrived at the club before the match with all my bags, because I knew that after the final we had to take the plane straight away. We arrived at four in the morning in Shanghai to try to sleep a little more and get used to the playing conditions. This is the schedule: we have to travel from one tournament to the next. It's difficult. I only slept six hours. Now I'll rest, I think I need it. Tomorrow I'll start training and on Saturday I'll try to play at my best. After the American season, I had a month to train. I played the Davis Cup and the Laver Cup, events that helped me recover energy and find new motivation. I love playing team competitions. They helped me find joy on the court again. I came to Asia with a lot of energy and I want to enjoy every single second. It's been a great month of preparation and now I'm ready for the next tournaments," he explained.
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Earlier, at the Laver Cup, Carlitos had analyzed: "Many believe that this is a good calendar, but others think that there are a lot of mandatory tournaments and probably in the years to come there will be even more. In a way, they are killing us. Now there are a lot of injuries because of the calendar and other things, but at some point there will be players who will have to skip tournaments because they have to take care of their body, their family and another life outside of tennis."
