Tennis players say stop. Casper Ruud and Jannik Sinner are fed up with the way tennis tournament organizers treat them. Ruud criticized the organization of the Masters 1000 tournament in Paris on the X platform, and Jannik Sinner withdrew from the tournament. Here’s what tennis players complain about.
At 2:37 a.m. the last Wednesday match of the ATP Masters 1000 in Paris ended. Jannik Sinner defeated Mackenzie McDonald 6:7 (6), 7:5, 6:1. This morning it turned out that Sinner would not have much time to regenerate his body after the fierce duel with McDonald, because he will play Thursday’s match around 5 p.m. This schedule did not please Casper Ruud, who counted how many hours Sinner was given for regeneration between Wednesday and Thursday’s match by the tournament organizers and wrote on social media:
“Well done ATP. Great way to help one of the best players in the world recover and be as ready as possible when he finished his previous match at 2:37 this morning. 14.5 hours to recover… what a joke” – wrote an angry Ruud on the X platform, attaching the schedule of Thursday’s matches, where Sinner’s duel is scheduled for late afternoon.
Interestingly, the story doesn’t end there. This situation frustrated Sinner himself. Jannik Sinner announced that he will not take the court for his match on Thursday as he is forced to withdraw from the tournament due to fatigue. Moreover, Sinner’s case is not an isolated one. Women’s tennis players have been criticizing the way some tournaments arrange their match schedules for several months. They report that they often do not get a full 24 hours to regenerate and rest. They also point out that sometimes matches start too late, which means that some players are forced to play at night, which disturbs their sleep rhythm and, consequently, the regeneration of the body. Iga Świątek, the second-ranking woman, even wrote to the tennis authorities asking for a reason why the tournament organizers could schedule matches for 10 p.m. She didn’t get an answer.
The ATP did not respond to Ruud’s criticism and Sinner’s withdrawal from the tournament. Do you also think that tennis match schedules are sometimes too tight and that the organizers do not take into account what the players themselves think about it when arranging the schedules?
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