After his victory against Carlos Alcaraz in his last group match at the Turin Masters, Alexander Zverev railed against the overloaded season for Tennis players.
World number 2 Alexander Zverev attacked the ATP circuit calendar on Friday in Turin on the sidelines of the Masters, saying it was “pure madness” after his success against Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz 7-6 (7/ 5), 6-4. “Do you know of another professional sport where the off-season lasts only four weeks?” the German asked a journalist who asked him about the impact of a possible reorganization of the ATP calendar on German tournaments.
“I didn’t have to spend more than three days in a row at home this year,” he recalled. “We now have Masters (1000) which are over two weeks, we are told that this allows us to have a day of rest, but for me, a day of rest is when I am at home, when I sleep in my bed, when I spend time with my daughter and with my two dogs,” explained Zverev who is part of the ATP Players Council.
A truce of less than a month
“This year, I'm going to fly to Australia on December 19, we don't spend the end-of-year holidays with family, we're the only professional sport to do that. Even the Bundesliga (the German Championship football, Editor's note) is taking a break for Christmas and New Year's Day” he noted.
On Thursday, the boss of the ATP, Andrea Gaudenzi, had already regretted that the off-season was too short, blaming the new formula of the Davis Cup, the final phase of which pits eight nations against each other. After the Masters, of which he will play the semi-finals on Saturday against the American Taylor Fritz, Zverev will fly to Malaga, Spain, where the German will face Canada in the quarter-finals of the Davis Cup.
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