Taylor Fritz has been quite open about his distaste for the tennis balls used around the ATP Tour this year, and he voiced his displeasure once again.
Many players have complained about the tennis balls used this year. Many players find the balls quite heavy after a bit of play, causing problems for many. A lot of them have to hit the balls harder to generate the same power due to the heaviness, and it seems to be injuring players.
Wrist injuries have exploded recently, along with elbow and shoulder injuries, and quite a few players are convinced the balls are at fault. It's not impossible at all because it does make sense.
More wear and tear and more injuries are pretty simple concepts. Fritz also doesn't like the frequent changes, as he dealt with four different balls in four different weeks during the season.
It's just an entire mess that he wants the ATP to address because in his mind the correlation is pretty clear, and once again, the American talked about it in a recent talk with The Age.
I know my body really well, and I don't know if overuse is also a factor in it, but I've been playing for eight years and I never really had wrist issues prior to this year. It always flared up when we switched balls.
Fritz is not the only one who never had any wrist issues. Sebastian Korda was pretty open about not having any kind of wrist issues until recently, and we've seen it several times. Sometimes it's the elbow or something else, but the sudden spike in injuries is not by chance.
It got bad originally at grass-court season, when we switched from the Wilsons at the French Open to the Slazengers, then it started to get a bit better, but we switched to a Tecnifibre ball that we've never played with before at Washington, and it got really bad again.
The ATP will have to address the issue because calls are getting louder. Fritz, Carlos Alcaraz, Daniil Medvedev, Novak Djokovic, and many more complained about it.
It's definitely a problem they need to fix. Some balls, when we switched, were a bit softer, which felt a bit better on the wrist, then you switch to balls that are really hard, and they feel like a brick when they hit your racquet.
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