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 rankings pressure certainly aren’t helping her heal). For Svitolina and Kasatkina, it was burn out that drove their decisions. “The schedule is too much, mentally and emotionally I am at breaking point,” explained Kasatkina in an Instagram post today. Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff have also spoken out about the relentless schedule in recent weeks.
On the ATP side, we’re watching players fall like dominoes (almost literally, in some cases) in Shanghai, where the heat and humidity have reached heights a sane person might call unplayable. Jannik Sinner seemed to tweak something in his leg during his match against Tallon Griekspoor yesterday at the end of the second set and proceeded to cramp so severely he could barely stand up while he served, ultimately retiring. It was up there with some of the most disturbing cramping I’ve ever seen and it felt deeply weird that, because of the ATP’s rules about cramping, Sinner couldn’t take an MTO until he finished his service game. Machac, Ruud, Goffin, and Atmane are just a few of the others to retire from this tournament. Even Taylor Fritz, ever the grinder, looked absolutely shot in his match against Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, writing on Instagram after, “If you know me, you know I love to compete more than anything. That being said, it’s been A LOT lately, and this week it’s clear to me that I’ve hit my limit.”
Not to mention the fact that some of the top players, like Badosa, have been out for huge chunks of the year due to serious injuries, including Qinwen Zheng, Jack Draper, Athur Fils, Tommy Paul, and Ben Shelton. The vibe of both tours right now, but especially the ATP, is akin to the lights going up at a party you stayed at way too late with a few random stragglers in very bad shape. Fun, it is not.
And as much as I love to know that tennis is always on when I need it, I think many fans are starting to question if the constant onslaught is really necessary. One tennis friend joked to me that she’s seeing the players more than her own family, and I’ve talked to a few people who feel like they need a break from hardcore fandom for their own sanity. Perhaps it wouldn’t be the worst thing if we yearned for the sport a little more?
I’d like to think that these past few months will be a wake-up call for both tours and tournament directors to rethink the status quo, but that’s probably asking too much for a sport whose top tennis channels and tournaments share constant “pain porn” videos of players falling apart on court like it’s something fun to look at. Thanks but, I’m not here for the Hunger Games, fix your shit (stadiums designed for an overheating world, perhaps?) and give us some good, well-rested tennis instead.
(PS. I know a lot of people think the ball is in the players’ court but I disagree—most of them have very little power and the few who do, like Alcaraz, Sinner and Sabalenka, are able to take breaks a bit more freely without it affecting their ranking significantly, making it less likely that they’re going to lead the charge on changing things. I also can’t really knock the already-exhausted players for not having the time or energy to band together and try to fix things. IMO, the best thing for tennis would be a total schedule overhaul, not players sitting out of the excessive tournaments more and sacrificing their well-earned rankings in the process. That’s simply going to be a hard sell, meaning change ain’t gonna come. Of course, the exhibitions are another story—if/when all the invited ATP players show up to the Six Kings Slam with their bodies in shambles next week to catch a cool $1.5 million, I won’t be crying for them.)
Unstrung
Zverev keeps talking
I don’t think a week has gone by lately without Alexander Zverev embarrassing himself by opening his mouth. He might just be the most un-self-aware person I’ve never met and if he wasn’t so…him…I’d try to track down his PR person and help them out. While his inane quotes often see him equating himself with already-greats like Alcaraz and Sinner, he’s also become well-known for making excuses after every loss that display a cavernous inability to self-reflect.
Now, it turns out, he even has excuses for his poor performance this year when he does win, as he did in an interview following his match against Valentin Royer in Shanghai. “I hate when [court speeds are] the same,” he said. “And I know the tournament directors are going towards that direction because they want Jannik and Carlos to do well in every tournament.”
He would be into conspiracies. Unfortunately this one was first peddled by Roger Federer on a live episode of Served at Laver Cup and took off because he’s, well, Federer, but it doesn’t bear out when you look at the actual data, as writer Matthew Willis outlined here.
Zverev’s comment did however result in one of the funniest responses from Sinner I’ve ever seen, in which his PR training briefly fell away as he looked stunned and tried not to laugh—a meme for the ages.
You know who isn’t making excuses and instead keeping it refreshingly real about what’s holding them back? Andrey Rublev, with one of the most honest answers about his form that I’ve ever seen a player give (four-minute mark, with English translation):
Kitted
Lacoste debuts its Spring/Summer ‘26 show
Tennis players like Venus Williams, Grigor Dimitrov, and Arthur Fils showed up for Lacoste’s Spring/Summer 2026 runway show in Paris yesterday, held at a public school (the Lycée Carnot) so beautiful that my American mind could not comprehend it. It was designed to look like an ultra-glamorous locker room with towels for seat cushions and (in a nod to the brand’s muse, tennis) alleys of green grass lining the runway.
Lacoste is always a bit on the nose and this collection was no different, with oversized polos, a gauzy top printed with tennis instructions, and leather bags and bag tags that read “FOR TENNIS USE ONLY.” But the brand’s nascent creative director Pelagia Kolotouros is doing a better job at weaving some of the bordering-on-corny tennis elements with subtler references that feel more current, like proportion-mixing tracksuits, towel skirts, and wet-effect nylon zip-ups and shorts that were like all of the kits in Shanghai right now but chic.
I’ve always envisioned the Lacoste customer as older, stuffy, and unconcerned with “cool,” but with tennis popularity at something of a peak, it’s prime time for the house to reinvent itself a bit and try to court younger, fashion-minded consumers. This collection feels like a good start.
Thanks for reading! If you have tennis news or tips to share, email jessica@hard-court.com.