Alex de Minaur blatantly called out ATP’s scheduling after his French Open campaign suffered a stunning collapse. The Australian, leading by two sets to love against Alexander Bublik in the second round of the clay Major on Thursday, May 29, was astonishingly outplayed by the Kazakh and ousted from the tournament.
De Minaur’s lightning quick court coverage left Bublik scrambling across the first two sets, both of them handsomely going the Australian’s way, 6-2, 6-2. The three sets that followed though, produced a completely different story. The Kazakh came into his own, while the ATP No. 9’s level drastically dipped, leading to the former winning the third, fourth and fifth set 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 respectively.
During his post-match press conference, Alex de Minaur bemoaned the lack of adequate rest and recovery before starting new seasons over the last few years.
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"No one's got a solution. 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 preseason, straight into the new season again," the 26-year-old said.
The nine-time ATP Tour-level singles titlist also highlighted the brutally long duration of a full tennis season once it begins.
"Once you start, you don't finish until Nov. 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," he added.
Alex de Minaur opined that ultimately, the prevailing schedule of the ATP Tour would impact the longevity of players' careers because of its effects on their mental health.
"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," the Australian concluded.
Fellow top 10 player Casper Ruud also criticized ATP's system following his own surprisingly early exit from this year's Roland Garros.
Injury-stricken Casper Ruud lambasted ATP's ranking and mandatory event system following French Open 2R loss, a day before Alex de Minaur upset
While Alex de Minaur's take revolved more around the mental side of things, a day before, his rival Casper Ruud highlighted how the ATP's system of rankings and mandatory events jeopardizes players' physical health.
Ruud's criticism of the ATP came in the wake of his four-set, second-round loss to Nuno Borges at Roland Garros. A knee injury the Norwegian came into the tournament with flared up during the match and significantly affected the result.
"I'm not sure if you're aware, but if you don't play a mandatory event, they cut 25% of your year-end bonus. You are kind of forcing players to show up injured or sick, or whatever, when that is not what I think is very fair," Ruud said.
Casper Ruud and Alex de Minaur aren't the only top 10 seeds who have exited the French Open much earlier than what many would have expected. No. 4 seed Taylor Fritz's stay in Paris also turned out to be short-lived, as he was beaten in the first round by Daniel Altmaier.
