Taylor Fritz will be the No. 1 seed at this week’s Citi DC Open, the first major tournament in the US Open series for the season. However, the American is concerned for his fellow players on the tour, lamenting the increasing difficulties of managing the extra-long ATP season.
Following the end of the grass swing at Wimbledon, the tennis tour is facing a major issue in handling fatigue, with players withdrawing left and right from tournaments. In Washington, for starters, the likes of Tommy Paul and Jakub Mensik withdrew at the last minute. Next week at the Canadian Open, things are even more concerning, with Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Novak Djokovic and Jack Draper among the notable names on the withdrawal list.
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This is but a symptom of an issue players have been complaining on the ATP Tour for a while. With the off-season almost non-existent (barely three weeks), the top players are likely to play almost every week of the year, especially after the recent decision to move Masters 1000 tournaments to two weeks instead of one.
The result of the change is that Taylor Fritz is now playing his 15th tournament of the 2025 calendar year, in just the seventh month. Speaking to press before his campaign start in Washington DC, the American No. 1 shared his frustrations, wondering aloud why the people in-charge were making the season even longer than it previously was instead of making it shorter to benefit players.
"It's a complicated issue, a strange one considering recent years. Probably almost all players have been asking for a shorter season for some time... however, all we're doing is making it even longer, adding more things, more breaks, even developing longer tournaments," Fritz lamented.
Taylor Fritz could not help but wonder why there was "so much tennis" being played, also hoping that the season gets modified soon so that he and his colleagues can have a longer off-season to recover better.
“Obviously, I think some parts were shortened to find a better connection between tournaments, but we should work in another direction. It's interesting to see how we can shorten certain elements, like the space between tournaments, but then we can't find the space to shorten the calendar itself, weeks where there's nothing going on," Taylor Fritz said.
"I would love to see the deadlines reduced and have a few extra weeks, shorten the season, but I don't know why there's so much tennis; there are still so many tournaments to go,” he added.
At the Citi DC Open, Fritz will take on Aleksandar Vukic in the second round to kick off his run.
"I didn't even know the Hopman Cup was happening" - Taylor Fritz
Meanwhile, with the tennis world recovering from the grueling Wimbledon Championships, the Hopman Cup happened last week, with Felix Auger-Aliassime and Bianca Andreescu taking the win for Canada in the mixed doubles tournament.
As happy as he was for them, Taylor Fritz was left most confused by the timing of the event, admitting to press at the Citi DC Open that he did not even know the Hopman Cup was taking place at the time.
“I saw that the Hopman Cup was held this summer after Wimbledon. I didn't even know this tournament was even happening. They've had players like Félix Auger-Aliassime and Flavio Cobolli at the event, present in the draw after playing a Grand Slam like Wimbledon, and one of them is quite deep in the draw," Taylor Fritz said.
The American No. 1 added:
"If you think about it, it's crazy; we just keep adding things to the calendar, over and over again."
At the moment, Fritz is in the line-up at the upcoming Canadian Open, following which he is scheduled to play at the Cincinnati Open and the US Open.
