Taylor Fritz has called for the tennis season to be shortened as he reacted to the host of big-name withdrawals from the 2025 Canadian Open.
Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Jack Draper and Novak Djokovic — four of the top six players in the ATP Rankings — have pulled out of the Masters event in Toronto. Sebastian Korda, Hubert Hurkacz and Jordan Thompson have also withdrawn from the tournament.
World No 3 Alexander Zverev is set to be the top seed in Canada, while fourth-ranked Fritz is projected to be seeded second. Lorenzo Musetti and Ben Shelton, who are ranked seventh and eighth, will be seeded third and fourth respectively.
Prior to his appearance at the ATP 500 event in Washington, Fritz labelled the tennis schedule “insane.”
“Yeah, I think, I mean, probably pretty much all the players for a long time have been asking for the season to be shorter, but all we are doing is just lengthening it, adding more stuff, we’re adding more, like, longer tournaments,” the American said.
“The Hopman Cup was after Wimbledon. I didn’t even know this was going on. They had an event with Felix [Auger-Aliassime] and [Flavio] Cobolli playing a tournament right after Wimbledon and one of them is coming and playing here. It’s insane, we are just adding stuff to the calendar over and over again.
“I think they shortened parts to obviously give themselves an extra week to do this, to make it the three weeks between the two tournaments (Wimbledon and Canada).
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“I think it’s funny how we can shorten, we find ways to shorten the schedule to make room for other tournaments, but we can’t find room to shorten the schedule just for there to be nothing.
“I’d love to see it go back to just two weeks and maybe we can have an extra — can shorten the season a week. I don’t know. But it’s a lot of tennis. It’s a lot of tennis upcoming.”
On the controversial 12-day Masters 1000 format, the 27-year-old added: “To be honest, I am complaining about the length of the two-week tournaments, but at the same time, I don’t dislike playing a match and having a day off and playing a match.
“It’s weird. It’s just kind of like kind of, like, mindset and feeling I’m in. Some weeks I might prefer just to go all at once, and some weeks I might prefer to have a day off after my matches.”
Fritz will face world No 105 Aleksandar Vukic in his opening match at the Citi Open.
READ NEXT: ATP Canadian Open entry list: Alcaraz, Sinner, Djokovic lead big withdrawals
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