Former US Open champion Sloane Stephens has highlighted a problem with the tennis circuit.
The former world number three has somewhat slowed down after a couple of Grand Slam final appearances.
Sloane Stephens won her eighth WTA Tour singles title at the Rouen Open in April, defeating Magda Linette in the final.
The American registered wins over second seed Caroline Garcia in the semi-finals and fourth seed Yuan Yue in the last eight.
A disappointing outing at the majors saw the former champion fail to get beyond the first round in New York – something Stephens described as ‘heartbreaking’.
With an unrelenting year on the tennis circuit, the 31-year-old outlined what she thinks is becoming a bit of an issue on the ATP and WTA tours.
Sloane Stephens highlights major problem facing ATP and WTA tour
A busy year on tour has seen multiple issues sprout up. Scheduling concerns however have been top of the list with Iga Swiatek complaining people might ‘hate’ her views on the tennis calendar.
Stephens has added to the discourse highlighting more how the schedule has posed players a real quandary, with many being forced to play through injury, for example.
She said on the Tennis Insider podcast: “I would say that when I needed a break I was like ‘alright I am going home’. I always felt I never pushed myself to be like I am going to push myself to stick it out for another three weeks just because I need my ranking. I feel like a lot of players do that in general.
“You are just there because you don’t want to pay the fine, or you’re supposed to be, you entered the tournament and you don’t want to have any more withdrawals. You are like I’m present but mentally I’m not here,” she explained.
“I feel like that is one of the bad things about both tours, ATP and WTA, that you are forced to play even when you are probably not in the best mental capacity or physical shape, you might be injured and you just arrive because that’s what you are supposed to do. That has probably set people back more than anything, not having the freedom or the independence to make that decision.
“I think that in my career I have done a lot of that, of going I’m just not going to go. I think that has helped me in a way, but also left me opened to be judged by people saying why not play?”
Is player discontent at an all time high?
While the US Open saw a slight downturn in frustrated players, the Shanghai Masters brought them all right back.
Novak Djokovic complained of new rules, while Alexander Zverev and Stefanos Tsitsipas projected their own insecurities onto random umpires.
It’s a troubling trend the ATP and to a far lesser extent, the WTA are grappling with.
Confirming to their primadonna tag, you could easily reel off ten players who’ve lashed out at officials unfairly in the last month or two.
While legitimate scheduling criticism ought to be levelled at tennis bodies, a bunch of multi-millionaires in their twenties whinging about mistreatment will always look bad.
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