Dominic Thiem Slams ATP Calendar for Too Many Hard Court Tournaments

World no. 4, Dominic Thiem criticized the ATP Calendar for conducting hard court tournaments for more than half of the year as the Austrian feels that it is not good for their body to play more on the hard surface.

The ATP World Tour Calendar comprises of 9 ATP World Tour Masters 1000, 13 ATP World Tour 500 events and 40 ATP World Tour 250 events. It also includes four Grand Slam tournaments, one ATP Finals, and one ATP NextGen Finals. The ATP tour includes 68 tournaments in total.

However, 40 out of the 68 ATP tournaments are held on the Hard Surface. These 40 hard court events include 2 Grand Slams, 6 ATP Masters 1000, 8 ATP 500 events, 22 ATP 250 events and both the ATP Finals and ATP NextGen Finals.

The five-week summer hard court season starts from August links seven North American hard-court tournaments to the final Grand Slam of the year, the US Open.

Also, the new season starts from the Australian Open Series, held across Australia in preparation for the first Grand Slam of the year. Finally, the clay-court season starts from mid-February, followed by the Grass season, which ends till mid-July.

Dominic Thiem raised his voice on this issue of playing hard court tournaments for more than half of the year. He said, “We play on hard from Canada to at least February, most of the players return on clay in April, it’s more than half a year on hard, I think it’s not the best for the body.”

Dominic Thiem is currently participating at the Rothenbaum tournament, also known as the German Open, which is played on the Clay court in Hamburg. The 25-year-old believes that he needs to play more matches after his first-round exit at the Wimbledon Championships 2019 against Sam Querrey.

He said before coming to the German Open,  “I played only one match over the last six weeks and I am really happy to re-start, I think it will be more in the next few weeks.”