We've seen a lot of tennis players speak about the schedule and how long it is, and while Andy Murray agrees with that, there is some hypocrisy there.
We all know that the tennis schedule is very long. The sport basically never stops because the Davis Cup finishes in late November, and there are already exhibitions as early as mid-December.
That's not a lot of time to really recharge batteries because it is a tough sport to play. Even if you take the physical demand of matches out of it, there is still the traveling and being away from home taking a toll on the player's mental side.
All things considered, the season being too long and the calendar being too demanding is a fair stance to have. Andy Murray agrees with it, per the National, and he'd like to see a longer season, but it's a bit hypocritical to talk about that and then extend your season unnecessarily, as some other players do.
"I think there should be a longer off-season as well. I don't know if I would want restrictions on exhibitions. I just think that sometimes the players are a little bit hypocritical [over] the tennis schedule."
"And it’s like the tennis schedule is too long, but then players are flying all over the world in the off-season to play exhibitions, and that's their choice. But it just seems hypocritical because they don't have to play the exhibitions."
For example, Carlos Alcaraz recently admitted that the season is too demanding on the players. That is totally fair. However, he also signed up for an exhibition in Mexico in the off-season and an exhibition match in Saudi Arabia not long after that.
He also signed up for the Netflix Slam in Las Vegas, which is coming soon. On top of that, he signed up for the 6 King Slam in Saudi Arabia later this year. He didn't have to do any of that, but he's being well compensated for his troubles.
That's what Murray's talking about. It's fair to criticize the schedule, but not when players sign up for a ton of exhibitions and then complain about the season being too long. After all, as the Brit said, players don't have to play every event.
"And they don't have to play every tournament on the ATP tour; they can decide not to come here [to Dubai] or they don't have to play Indian Wells. Yes, that might harm their ranking, but they can choose to miss those events. So yeah, I would probably like to see a longer off-season."
0 Comments