The words spoken by Matteo Berrettini after the Davis Cup match between Italy and Argentina, played in 2022, resonate more current than ever. The tennis season is getting longer and more suffocating, the ATP has decided to extend some of the most important Masters 1000, and the players are forced into hard and close commitments.
“The schedule is very busy, maybe too much. I don’t know how many sports there are where we play 11 months a year at this intensity, with all the traveling we do. I think part of the injuries we suffer come from this.” In light of the numerous forfeits that are characterizing the eve of the Monte Carlo tournament, Paolo Bertolucci expressed some very important considerations in an editorial written for the Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport.
In a few hours, Rafael Nadal, Carlos Alcaraz, Felix Auger-aliassime and Denis Shapovalov announced that they will not take part in the third 1000m of the season, the first on clay.
Bertolucci: “Tennis needs a change”
Bertolucci wrote: “Tennis has become like all other sports, much more physical, so much so that it requires a greater expenditure of energy rather than technique.
This data, of course, added to increasingly crowded and exaggerated competitive calendars, forces the athlete to take many risks and then have to stop in the pits due to various injuries. Speaking of the Monte Carlo tournament, which for many represents the debut on clay, we are really sorry for Nadal’s forfeit: we know how much he cares about clay and what forced him to postpone his return.
Alcaraz’s absence especially affects those who have not seen the match or have not understood what physical and mental expenditure there was in that semifinal in Miami against Sinner. The fact that after a medical examination in Spain he was forced to give forfeit at the Monte Carlo tournament is proof of the toughness of this sport and of the fact that players, even the youngest, will sooner or later have to take note of it.
With only one way out: modify the programming based on the Commitments, but only after listening carefully to one’s physique. Play less, be healthy and perform more: this must be the slogan of the modern tennis player.”
