High numbers of players withdrawing from tournaments due to injuries has become a persistent theme in 2026, and former Grand Slam finalist John Lloyd has warned \u201cit\u2019s going to get worse\u201d in an interview with Tennis365.<\/p>\n
The ATP and WTA 500 events at the 2026 Queen\u2019s Club Championships were both significantly impacted by withdrawals, with 17 players (nine men and eight women) pulling out across both singles entry lists.<\/p>\n
Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>, Jack Draper, Jessica Pegula, Marta Kostyuk, Belinda Bencic and Rafael Jodar were some of the high-profile absentees.<\/p>\n There are already eight men and five women who have withdrawn from the 2026 Wimbledon Championships<\/a> \u2014 including four current top 20 stars; Alcaraz, Victoria Mboko, Lorenzo Musetti and Valentin Vacherot.<\/p>\n Speaking exclusively to Tennis365 at the Queen\u2019s Club, Lloyd argued that the best-of-five set Grand Slam format and the tennis schedule are behind the injury issues in the men\u2019s game specifically.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to get worse,\u201d said the former British No 1, who reached a career-high ranking of world No 23.<\/p>\n \u201cAn ideal world \u2014 which will never happen \u2014 is that they move the Australian Open to March, but it\u2019ll never happen. But at least the better compromise is they make the Grand Slams best of three [sets].<\/p>\n John Lloyd tells Emma Raducanu she made \u2018mind-boggling\u2019 mistake: \u2018Most illogical thing I\u2019ve seen\u2019<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Projected Wimbledon women\u2019s seeds: Sabalenka No 1, Chwalinska\u2019s unusual case, Eala and Raducanu set to get nod<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cAnd it\u2019s not the physicality of the matches at the Slams, although that is extreme. In my opinion, it\u2019s the preparation That\u2019s where the body breaks down.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause if you look at it logically, tennis is one of the most rigorous sports there is. Tennis, there\u2019s a break at the end of the year, but it\u2019s really for six weeks maximum.<\/p>\n \u201cYou get the six weeks off, and people say that\u2019s a long time, but it isn\u2019t. You take two weeks off to kind of recharge, and even then, you\u2019re still on empty, and then you\u2019ve got to start preparing, not just for a tournament like Queen\u2019s, you\u2019ve got to prepare for a major!<\/p>\n \u201cSo you\u2019ve go to go from being dormant, almost hibernating, to go to the extreme to get ready for possibly seven, four-hour matches. You\u2019re putting your body through this ridiculous turbocharge without gradually going into it.<\/p>\n \u201cYou finish that one, and then you have a week or so off, and then you have Indian Wells and Miami back-to-back. You have a little break, then you\u2019ve got to start preparing for the French [Open] and Wimbledon.<\/p>\n \u201cThen you recover from that, you have a couple of weeks off, then you\u2019ve got to recover for the US Open. It\u2019s insanity.\u201d<\/p>\n Lloyd, who was a runner-up at the 1977 Australian Open, added: \u201cBest-of-five, the physicality of these guys now\u2026 best-of-five in my day is the same as best-of-three now, in terms of what they do with their bodies and the physicality.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re animals \u2014 and I mean that in the best way. But they are going to break down, and it will happen more and more.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Projected Wimbledon men\u2019s seeds: Sinner headlines, Djokovic in lowly position, 6 Americans, 4 Italians feature<\/a> The post John Lloyd warns \u2018it\u2019s going to get worse\u2019 as Carlos Alcaraz leads Wimbledon withdrawal list<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" High numbers of players withdrawing from tournaments due to injuries has become a persistent theme in 2026, and former Grand Slam finalist John Lloyd has warned \u201cit\u2019s going to get worse\u201d in an interview with Tennis365. The ATP and WTA 500 events at the 2026 Queen\u2019s Club Championships were both significantly impacted by withdrawals, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis News<\/h2>\n
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