Taylor Fritz claims tennis is doing something 'insane' as Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner both withdraw from Toronto

The ATP Tour in recent days has been rocked with some big news involving Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.

After the Mubadala Citi DC Open in Washington, the attention will turn towards a Canadian swing and, in particular, the Toronto Open, which is a big tournament before the US Open.

However, the two best players in world tennis have now pulled the plug on their participation, along with others such as Jack Draper and Novak Djokovic, as they bid to prepare properly for the US Open instead.

This situation merely serves to highlight just how tough the ATP Tour is right now and once again, the players have been having discussions about the demands of the schedule in its current form.

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Taylor Fritz after a number of players withdraw from Toronto Open

The withdrawals of a number of top players means that Fritz will start the tournament as the number one seed as the highest-ranked player.

The Wimbledon semi-finalist could see this as a good opportunity to get another title under his belt, but it would appear that he also has some concerns over the schedule in its current format.

He said in a press conference: “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 Hopman Cup was after Wimbledon. I didn’t even know this was going on. They had an event with Felix and 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, but we should just be – you know, 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.”

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The American number one is making a lot of sense with these comments, but he certainly doesn’t appear to be showing the signs of a player in need of a rest.

Fritz is playing extremely well at the moment and was brilliant as he enjoyed a solid run to the last four at Wimbledon earlier this month.

At 27, Fritz will be desperate to end his wait to win a Grand Slam title and at last year’s US Open, he reached the final before going down to Sinner in the final.

The Toronto Open will now be a tournament that Fritz is eagerly anticipating and given the current field, it would be hard to imagine the player not enjoying a deep run.

The ATP Tour find themselves in a tricky situation when it comes to the schedule because on one hand, they want to promote the game in lots of countries.

However, there is no point in having so many tournaments if the players are simply going to withdraw and produce tournaments without their very best players.

Fritz has made some valid points and now it will be intriguing to see if the schedule is shortened somewhat when next year’s dates are finalised.

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