The 2025 US Open has witnessed multiple health concerns for athletes so far. First, we saw Sebastian Korda pulling out during his first-round match against Cameron Norrie. Jack Draper withdrew just before his second-round match owing to the bone bruising in his left humerus. And now, we saw Ben Shelton pull out of his match against Adrian Mannarino, because of a shoulder injury. On top of that, Novak Djokovic was forced to take an early medical timeout because of his lower back. While injuries are a part of the sport, Shelton’s withdrawal and Djokovic’s medical timeout sparked an unexpected outrage. 

Pam Shriver, a 22-time major champion herself, slammed the Grand Slam rules for men. To be specific, she attacked the Grand Slams for requiring the male athletes to compete in a best-of-five-sets match. The text read, “I understand the tradition of men playing 3 of 5 sets in majors, but given the way tennis is played now, the demands of more travel, more extreme heat & the depth in the game making early rounds more demanding, we need to have a shorter format. I hope Ben & Novak are ok.” 

Well, with the best-of-five sets format for men, matches can stretch beyond 4-5 hours. And it can happen back-to-back over weeks. This puts an acute strain on the joints, tendons, and muscles, increasing the risk of acute injuries like hamstring tears that happened to Djokovic, and shoulder injuries like the one that’s troubling Shelton. With some matches ending late at night, the athletes’ recovery, sleep, and nutrition are also compromised. This leads to a buildup of fatigue. And in the end, the risk of overuse injuries increases. 

To make things worse, the season never seems to end. Even Novak Djokovic had to make a painful confession regarding this. He claimed that “tennis has the longest season of all global sports.” After all, it begins in January and proceeds till late November, leaving the players with just one month to recover from the entire year’s fatigue.

So, is that why Novak Djokovic isn’t focused on competing at some of the Masters tournaments? Let’s hear it from the Serbian himself, shall we? 

Novak Djokovic finds one way out of the long tennis season 

Talking about his absence from the Masters events, Djokovic claimed, “I’m prioritizing Grand Slams obviously, thrice I wanted to play my best tennis, and those are the tournaments where magic happens. Being a tennis player in a Grand Slam is no higher a peak to climb.” Well, to be fair, he seems to have no interest in competing in every single event. After all, he has already made a name for himself as a 24-time Grand Slam champion. 

Djokovic continued, “I decided not to play because I wanted to spend more time with my family. And to be honest, you know, I think I earned my right and have the luxury of kind of choosing, picking and choosing where I want to go and what I want to play.” But this decision came with a sad realization.

Most of the Masters events have now started to follow a two-week schedule. And that further cramps up the tennis calendar. Lashing out at the schedules, Novak Djokovic asserted that nowadays, there are 12 Grand Slams in a year. He claimed, “It’s just not any more prioritising the heavy schedule as I used to.” But what do you think of the issue here? Do you think tennis should be played for just three rounds? 

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