Tennis-De Minaur calls for shorter season, Ruud bemoans rankings ‘rat race’

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By Shrivathsa Sridhar

(Reuters) -A fatigued Alex De Minaur crashed out of the French Open on Thursday and called for the tennis calendar to be shortened, warning that a failure to take action soon could result in players burning out physically and mentally.

The season kicked off with the United Cup mixed team tournament in December, 33 days after the Davis Cup Finals ended in Spain, and the gruelling nature of the circuit has come under a harsh spotlight in recent years.

“No one’s got a solution,” De Minaur said after his 2-6 2-6 6-4 6-3 6-2 second-round defeat by Alexander Bublik.

“But the solution is simple: you shorten the schedule, right? What’s not normal is that for the last three, four years I’ve had two days off after the Davis Cup and I’ve gone straight into pre-season, straight into the new season again.

“Once you start, you don’t finish until November 24. So it’s never ending. The way it’s structured … I had to deal with that. I’m still dealing with that right now.

“The solution is you shorten (the tour), because what’s going to happen is players’ careers are going to get shorter and shorter because they’re just going to burn out mentally. There’s just too much tennis.”

Twice French Open finalist Casper Ruud said after his shock exit on Wednesday that the ATP’s ranking system was like a “rat race” and players felt compelled to compete in the men’s tour’s mandatory events even if they are carrying injuries.

The seventh seed lost to unseeded Nuno Borges, with the Norwegian saying he had been struggling with knee pain.

Asked if the tennis calendar made it difficult to take time off and fully heal an injury, the 26-year-old said players’ rankings would take a hit if they skipped mandatory events.

“Well, it’s like a rat race when it comes to the rankings,” Ruud said.

“You feel you’re obligated to play with certain rules that the ATP have set up with the mandatory events. You feel like you lose a lot if you don’t show up and play … the punishments are quite hard, in terms of everyone else will play, gain points, and you won’t.”

Reuters has contacted the ATP for comment.

Ruud also said a player’s year-end bonus was cut by 25% if they missed a mandatory event.

“If you don’t play a mandatory event, they cut 25% of your year-end bonus,” he said. “You’re forcing players to show up injured or sick, or whatever, when that’s not what I think is very fair.”

(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Paris; Additional reporting by Chiranjit Ojha in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford and Ed Osmond)