The "world's healthiest sport" is becoming hard to watch

Players and fans are crashing out, but will anything change? Plus, Zverev says things and a little Lacoste review.

The Replay

Is the “healthiest sport” in the room with us?

The self-proclaimed “world’s healthiest sport” is becoming hard to watch. The players are exhausted, burned out, and playing in brutal conditions at the tail end of a year where they’ve worked themselves into the ground. Those of us who follow the tour obsessively are also exhausted and burned out as we struggle to keep up with a non-stop schedule that’s constantly switching time zones and delivering less on the magic shot-making and more on the “dude, is he/she okay?”

Players complaining about the schedule is nothing new, but as I wrote earlier this year, it’s not just the calls from them that are getting louder—we’re seeing more and more undeniable evidence that the current system is not sustainable and bordering on inhumane.

Three WTA players (Daria Kasatkina, Elina Svitolina, and Paula Badosa) have ended their seasons early, with only Badosa doing it for injury reasons (a chronic back injury that the tennis schedule and ranking…