Back in March of this year, the Association of Tennis Professionals, or ATP, revealed its calendar for the 2025 tour, which contained 60 tournaments across 29 countries. There were notable changes in the schedule. The ATP Masters 1000 tournaments had been significantly extended in their duration. The National Bank Open Presented and Cincinnati Open were both extended into 12-day events, which is around the same duration as grand slam events, following suit with seven out of nine ATP Masters 1000 events that have switched to the same format. Tennis legends Novak Djokovic and Billie Jean King quickly called out the lack of pushback to this change.

This past Friday, and interestingly enough at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center ahead of the US Open, Djokovic called out the late response to the changes by big tennis stars saying, “I have noticed that a lot of top players have been quite opposing the new change of the almost two-week events, the Masters level,” He however added in his criticism with, “I support the players. But (at) the end of the day, when the players needed to be active and when there was a time of negotiations and decision-making, players weren’t participating enough.”

Djokovic was likely referring to the fact that these negotiations had been a long time coming, but received little clap-back in the decision-making stages. This is something that Djokovic has been trying to address with the Professional Tennis Players Association that he co-founded in 2020. Billie Jean King agreed with the former World No. 1, with an X post to concur with Djokovic’s views.

“I agree with ⁦⁦@DjokerNole⁩’s observations and opinions here.” Billie Jean King captioned an image of Djokovic with the text “At U.S. Open, Novak Djokovic calls out top players for not challenging tennis schedule…” across it. The image is linked to the New York Times article wherein Djokovic expands on the issue, saying, “This is an ongoing story of the players, particularly top players.”

Djokovic said of the late response to the issue, adding, “They express their feelings, but then when you really need to put in the time and the energy into conversations, meetings, which I know it’s very difficult.”

Too little, too late? Very few top ATP players raise alarms alongside Novak Djokovic

The ‘top players’ who have spoken out about the changes so far include Djokovic’s once nemesis Carlos Alcaraz and famed Wimbledon practice partner Aryna Sabalenka. Last year, Alcaraz said of the changes and the ATP’s new approach to players schedules, “probably are going to kill us in some way,” not mincing his words in any way, and seemingly making a strong stance.

Sabalenka, on the other hand, only made a statement this past month, but it still drove home the same point, “The schedule is really intense and it’s crazy what they (are) trying to make us do because we’re humans, like it’s impossible to handle this intensity. Every week is a mandatory tournament and the schedule is crazy, honestly.” Sabalenka said.

Still, Djokovic thinks that more could have been done. Djokovic has, for the past 5 years, been actively working with the Professional Tennis Players Association to initiate this sort of dialogue. The PTPA seeks to work as an individual body that prioritizes players safety and welfare, fairness, scheduling, sufficient monetary compensation, among other things. Djokovic and Billie Jean King believe that an early intervention could have solved this issue. Do you think players should have voiced out their concerns earlier? Or is it too late? Let us know in a comment.

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