A growing contingent of high-profile players on the ATP Tour have made it clear that they are not a fan of the 12-day Masters 1000 tournaments.<\/p>\n
As part of ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi\u2019s OneVision plan, seven of the nine Masters 1000 tournaments have been expanded to 12 days: Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid, Rome, Canada, Cincinnati and Shanghai. The singles main draws at these events now feature 96 players.<\/p>\n
Monte Carlo and Paris are the only Masters events that still have the traditional single-week, 56-player format.<\/p>\n
Here, we look at the criticisms seven big names have levelled at the controversial new Masters 1000 format.<\/p>\n
World No 1 Jannik Sinner<\/a> became the latest star to weigh in on the topic after reaching the final at the 2025 Cincinnati Masters.<\/p>\n \u201cMy personal view, I love the one-week events,\u201d the Italian said.<\/p>\n \u201cI love it when you see that the tournament in Monaco, for example, you have for Monte Carlo, you have this one-week event, and you have the first-round matches which are incredibly good. And if one good seeded-player loses, the next match is an incredible match still, and you have the quarter-finals and you know exactly when you buy the tickets.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have the quarter-finals and then you have the semi-final, which is Saturday, and then you have finally Sunday. And now I lost a little bit of the view of when does actually a finalist [play], because it used to be always Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, here [in Cincinnati] it\u2019s Monday. In Toronto, it\u2019s Wednesday or Thursday. So it\u2019s difficult even for us players. We lose a little bit of the days of the week, I would say.\u201d<\/p>\n During the 2025 Barcelona Open, Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> declared: \u201cThe one week ones are better. Some will think that in two weeks there are days of rest, but that is not the case.<\/p>\n \u201cYou train, you have to mentally prepare for the game, prepare for it\u2026 you\u2019re not resting, really. It\u2019s two full weeks. That\u2019s why I prefer the one-week Masters 1000. For me, it\u2019s better for tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n In May 2023<\/a>, Novak Djokovic<\/a> said:\u00a0\u201cIt depends really from which angle you\u2019re looking at it. I mean, I\u2019m personally, overall, not a fan of that because I feel like we already have four Grand Slams a year that take two plus one week eventually if you go all the way with training.<\/p>\n \u201cYou spend 10 to 12 weeks only in Grand Slams. Now we\u2019re going to have eight out of nine 1000 events be the same for next year: pretty much a two-week event.<\/p>\n \u201cAs I said it depends from which perspective you are looking at. If you\u2019re a fan, of course an extra day of seeing the top players is great because you have more tennis in your city. I understand from that point of view.<\/p>\n \u201cYou mentioned that it might be advantage because of the recovery. Yes, it could be the case in that given tournament.<\/p>\n \u201cBut then if you play all the big events on clay, for example, you played Indian Wells and Miami, that is also kind of a month duration for two events, then you play Monte Carlo, Barcelona, then back to back Rome and Madrid, if you play really well and go all the way, you\u2019re maybe not the freshest for Roland Garros.\u201d<\/p>\n Novak Djokovic sparks US Open injury doubts as practice video emerges<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner make US Open mixed doubles decision as draw is confirmed<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Appearing on the Nothing Major podcast, Alexander Zverev said: \u201cYou have the nine Masters 1000 events, which are mandatory; most of them are two-week-long events now, except Monte-Carlo and Paris Bercy \u2014 which I think are the best two weeks now on the ATP calendar.<\/p>\n \u201cI think for a fan and every single tennis player, Paris Bercy was awesome last year. You get there, you play your five matches, and you get out of there.<\/p>\n \u201cYou do not have to stick around or practice in between matches. That is how Masters events used to be and I think all the players loved it.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not a fan of where this is going, because if you take Alex de Minaur, for example. He played his last match at Davis Cup on the 25th November, and he played his first match of the United Cup on the 27th December.<\/p>\n \u201cSo you have a month of off-season. How are you going to take two weeks off and prepare your body for a new season? You don\u2019t have the time to do those things any more.<\/p>\n \u201cI think this is one subject where the ATP has to really think about it and find a solution about it, and to be honest, I have not heard a single player say that they love the two-week Masters events. I don\u2019t even think the fans like that.<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t like waiting for two days for their favourite player to play again. I understand tennis is a business, but I am not sure that business plan is working very well right now.\u201d<\/p>\n During the 2025 Madrid Masters, Jack Draper said: \u201cI think the way the tour is at the moment and these two-week events and less weeks to be at home, less weeks to train, it just seems like you\u2019re on a constant rabbit wheel, and there\u2019s no way off it.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s scary to think about as a player. You know, to think that, look, I know we\u2019re earning good money, and we\u2019re playing in front of great crowds, and something I love to do, but it\u2019s mentally very, very taxing.<\/p>\n \u201c[It\u2019s] something that I hope that potentially the ATP and the tours come together at some point and, I don\u2019t know, clean it up a little bit, I suppose, to make it so that there is a bit more space to train and to work on our bodies.<\/p>\n \u201cI think for me, the big thing is, I think the quality can suffer a little bit. I think there\u2019s a lot of top players who are in and out with their performances, and it\u2019s just purely because it\u2019s just overplaying.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople look on TV and they think, \u2018Oh, that was a bad performance\u2019 and stuff. It is mentally difficult every day to show up and to give it a hundred percent. And, you know, we have lives as well, there\u2019s things going on off the court all the time. We\u2019re not robots.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it is a scary proposition what\u2019s ahead, you know, the fact that it is a long career. But then again, you know, I don\u2019t have to play until I\u2019m 35, I can do everything and get the best out of myself, and I\u2019ll stop when I feel like I\u2019m ready.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking during the 2025 Canadian Open, Taylor Fritz said: \u201cTo be honest, the way I see it, if we\u2019re going to have this stretch of three weeks, if we\u2019re going to go back to how it used to be, one week each, if it\u2019s going to mean we\u2019re going to add another tournament, then I would be against it.<\/p>\n \u201cBut if it\u2019s going to mean that we make these Masters 1000s one week and we can lengthen the off-season, to give those extra weeks back at the end of the season, and give us a six\/seven week off-season rather than a four week off-season, that would be massive and I would be way in favour of doing the one week events.\u201d<\/p>\n In a post on Twitter in November 2024, Stefanos Tsitsipas wrote:\u00a0\u201cThe two-week Masters 1000s have turned into a drag. The quality has definitely dropped.<\/p>\n \u201cPlayers aren\u2019t getting the recovery or training time they need, with constant matches and no space for the intense work off the court.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s ironic that the @atptour committed to this format without knowing if it could actually improve the schedule, but the quality likewise. Paris got it right, done in a week. Exciting and easy to follow. Just how it\u2019s supposed to be.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the goal was to ease the calendar, extending every 1000 to two weeks is a backwards move. Sometimes, it feels like they\u2019re fixing what wasn\u2019t broken.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: What needs to happen for Novak Djokovic to win a 25th Grand Slam? Legendary coach reveals<\/a> The post Djokovic, Alcaraz, Sinner, Zverev: 7 top ATP stars who have criticised 12-day Masters format<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A growing contingent of high-profile players on the ATP Tour have made it clear that they are not a fan of the 12-day Masters 1000 tournaments. As part of ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi\u2019s OneVision plan, seven of the nine Masters 1000 tournaments have been expanded to 12 days: Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid, Rome, Canada, Cincinnati […]<\/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-889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889","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=889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Carlos Alcaraz \u2013 \u201cOne-week format is better for tennis\u201d<\/h2>\n
Novak Djokovic \u2013 \u201cI\u2019m personally, overall, not a fan\u201d<\/h2>\n
Tennis News<\/h2>\n
Alexander Zverev \u2013 \u201cI have not heard a single player say that they love the two-week Masters events\u201d<\/h2>\n
Jack Draper \u2013 \u201cThe big thing is, I think the quality can suffer a little bit\u201d<\/h2>\n
Taylor Fritz \u2013 \u201cIf we can lengthen the off-season\u2026\u201d<\/h2>\n
Stefanos Tsitsipas \u2013 \u201cA backwards move\u201d<\/h2>\n
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