Carlos Alcaraz is one of many high-profile players to have weighed in on the age-old schedule debate, in what has become one of the sport’s domineering topics at the moment.
However, with player welfare meant to be at the forefront of these elite sports, it is a very pertinent issue that desperately needs addressing.
It helps when people from all over the tennis world offer their support, so Andy Roddick‘s latest comments will certainly help their cause.
And, it might frighten the ATP and WTA should players do as the former world number one is suggesting.
Andy Roddick gives Carlos Alcaraz schedule advice
Reacting to Alcaraz’s public complaints about the schedule, Roddick sought to weigh in on this debate.
As a notion that is dominating at the moment, the four-time Grand Slam champion admitted: ‘As I said many times, the schedule in tennis is really tight. There are a lot of tournaments I love to play. But sometimes I can’t do it. Last year this was the case for me. Missing the Davis Cup. But this year I’m really excited about it. It’s a really special feeling for me.’
Now, speaking on the Served with Andy Roddick podcast, the American has told Carlos Alcaraz what to do that might finally spark change.
Roddick claimed: ‘The players that have played the most, they have to recover. When Swiatek is telling you that, when Carlos says anything negative about anything, it’s like it’s too much with mandatory events.
‘Yeah, you know what Carlos, just stop playing the mandatory events and see what they do. I’m going to guess they’re not going to kick you off the tour. Call their bluff.’
This comes after John McEnroe called for players to boycott Grand Slams to prove their point.
The tennis schedule could remove the joy from Carlos Alcaraz
If the schedule goes on as it is, adding events without offering these players a break, eventually something terrible will happen.
Alcaraz even theorised: Probably they are going to kill us in some way.
‘Right now a lot of good players are going to miss a lot of tournaments because of that [injury].’
This Spanish superstar has injected some much-needed joy and enthusiasm into the game just as the Big Three’s influence was waning, and for that, he deserves all the credit in the world.
But if this 21-year-old, who as Roddick notes does everything with a smile on his face is already disgruntled with the schedule, it’s quite telling.
Should they continue to drive him and his peers into the ground, this unbridled joy which he is so famed for could soon be wiped out.
It shouldn’t have to take something dramatic to happen before the ATP and WTA take a stand.
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