Taylor Fritz joined a growing list of players complaining of injury issues due to the Tour's ball policy and the frequent changes.
Quite a few players have complained about the tennis balls in use at various events on the ATP Tour. Quite a few players complained about them at various stages this year. Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz criticised the balls used at Roland Garros.
Earlier in the year, Medvedev wondered whether some of the balls used contributed to the growing list of shoulder, elbow, and wrist injuries among players. Fritz is one of those who complained about the balls used in Washington, and he revealed that he's been dealing with wrist problems during the US Open stretch.
According to Fritz, it's because he played with three different balls at consecutive events, which isn't good. Wrist issues haven't been that common in tennis before, but in recent years, we've seen many players deal with them, most notably Dominic Thiem, who is yet to discover his best tennis after almost missing an entire year with a wrist injury.
Have been dealing w wrist issues since beginning of USO series cause of ball changes✌🏻we went 3 different balls in 3 weeks
Fritz's response came to a social media post on X, which detailed comments made by Belgian tennis player Zizou Bergs, who tore a ligament in his wrist recently and blamed the ever-changing tennis balls for the problem.
Like scheduling, the balls are becoming a tense issue in the tennis community. Plenty of players are speaking up against it, but as ever, the Tours are very slow to react. Rumours have it that the new ball policy was implemented to slow down play as a counter to the modern style of tennis, which is very fast with short rallies.
Longer rallies and longer matches appeal more to the viewer, making ticket sales easier. However, is that all worth the injuries? Probably not.
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