ATP Chairman Andrea Gaudenzi has broken silence on the players' complaints about the schedule, acknowledging that the offseason has become very short but also highlighting that there are commitments to top tournaments and insisting that heyt can't do much there.
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Over the last couple of years, there has been a lot of frustration on the players' side over what they believe is an extremely long and demanding calendar. And it only got worse this year after the Masters events in Madrid and Rome expanded to two-week events.
Next year, the Canadian Masters and the tournament in Cincinnati are slated to follow the same route - that will leave Monte Carlo and Paris as the lone one-week Masters events. Needless to say, that didn't make players happy at all and some have already strongly criticized the plans for 2025.
One of the most vocal critics was none other than four-time Grand Slam champion Carlos Alcaraz, who offered some damning words about the matter, saying "they are probably going to kill us in some way."
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The 2024 season will officially finish on November 24th while the next season kicks off on December 27th at the United Cup.
We have expanded the Masters 1000 and in the 96-draw Masters there is theoretically one more match only if you reach the finaI. I agree with the players when they say that the off-season is too short and the Davis Cup also has an impact on this. With the new format many players play in November, once only those from the teams that reached the final, the others went on vacation. Now you don't have enough time to rest, rebuild your body and start playing tennis again," Gaudenzi told SportFace.
Gaudenzi agrees the situation with tournaments isn't ideal, but...
Some players simply feel that there is no need for a Masters tournament to be a two-week tournament. And while the ATP boss understands some of the arguments that the players have made, he also underlines that the Masters category is one of their "premium products" so therefore they need top stars competing there.
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This is a problem and I agree, we are working on it. However, the tournaments are owned and since we don't have a centralized system we can't take events and move them as we like. Then it is true that there is an obligation to play the Masters 1000, our premium product. Because fans want to see the best play in the biggest tournaments: Slams, Masters 1000 and Finals. This is the product that is popular and needs to be strengthened, also because the gap between Slams and 1000s is significant," Gaudenzi added.
Alcaraz, Stefanos Tsitsipas slammed the two-week Masters events
After winning Wimbledon and capturing the silver medal at the Paris Olympics, the Spanish tennis star stunningly lost his opener at the Cincinnati Masters and also shockingly got bounced by Botic van de Zandschulp in the US Open second round. When he arrived in Berlin for the Laver Cup in late September, the world No. 3 pretty much blamed the calendar for his poor North American hard-court swing since he said that he was tired and exhausted.
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"Probably they are going to kill us in some way. Right now a lot of good players are going to miss a lot of tournaments because of that. Sometimes, you don't want to go to a tournament. I'm not going to lie -- I have felt this way a few times already. Sometimes I don't feel motivated at all. But as I've said many, many times, I play my best tennis when I smile and enjoy it on court. That's the best option to keep motivating (myself)," Alcaraz said in Berlin.
Recently, 2003 US Open champion Andy Roddick sounded off on two-week Masters tournaments on his podcast, ripping them as "so stupid" and revealing that he heard it directly from players. Also, the former world No. 1 suggested that the ATP doesn't really care about the length of the schedule because "actions speak louder than words."
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Two-time Grand Slam finalist Tsitsipas fully agreed with Roddick and claimed that the quality and level were being negatively impacted by the schedule.
The two-week Masters 1000s have turned into a drag. The quality has definitely dropped. Players arent getting the recovery or training time they need, with constant matches and no space for the intense work off the court... If the goal was to ease the calendar, extending every 1000 to two weeks is a backwards move. Sometimes, it feels like theyre fixing what wasnt broken," Tsitsipas wrote on X.
Judging by Gaudenzi's words, there likely won't be any calendar changes that will make players happier.
