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Baronsamedi68 asks: Could the tennis calendar change to help ease the constant stream of injuries which players seem to experience and which seems almost bound to lead to burnout in some cases?
Tumaini: In a perfect world, the seven kingdoms of professional tennis - the ATP, WTA, ITF and the four grand slam tournaments - would come together, tear up the calendar and start from scratch. It is undeniable that the season is too long, inefficient and should be streamlined. This has been a talking point for many decades and there have been so many proposals over the years to address these issues. The increasingly physical nature of the sport has only exacerbated this problem in recent years and the number of injuries on the tour this year, particularly to younger players on the ATP tour such as Carlos Alcaraz, Holger Rune, Jack Draper, Lorenzo Musetti and Arthur Fils, is alarming.
However, the way things currently are, I do think players have a measure of power over their scheduling decisions. It can be tempting for them to chase points, prize money and appearance fees, and there are certain penalties that come with splitting certain tournaments, but in order to be a top player for an extended period of time, players have to prioritise their bodies when scheduling tournaments. I think the most obvious example of this is Alcaraz, who is still nursing the right wrist injury he suffered three months ago after opting to compete in Barcelona a couple of days after reaching the final in Monte Carlo.
Tumaini: There are some players from ordinary backgrounds who succeed in this sport. I think the most prominent examples inside the top 20 are players like Naomi Osaka and Frances Tiafoe. Novak Djokovic’s family did not come from great wealth. However, there is clearly a reason why there are currently multiple billionaire heiresses, Jessica Pegula and Emma Navarro, competing on the tour. Arthur Fery, of course, also comes from great wealth and Jack Draper’s father, Roger, was the chief executive of the LTA between 2006 and 2013.
This is an incredibly expensive sport that requires hundreds of thousands of pounds of investment into players each year in order to fund coaches, equipment, travel costs and so many other things. Unlike other sports like football, where the talented players are eventually employed by teams, that investment does not stop when players first “make it”. This is a financially challenging sport for many players that even make it to Wimbledon. Players ranked outside of the singles top 100 are unlikely to break even.
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