Three leading players call for the grass court season to be extended in Tennis365 exclusive
The end of Wimbledon brings down the curtain on the grass court season and a debate is raging over why this period of the tennis year is so brief.
Former US Open champion Andy Roddick is among those who claim the tennis calendar needs to be changed to extend the grass court season, after claiming it is ‘insane’ that the sport fails to make more of a period of the season that culminates with the sport’s biggest event at Wimbledon.
The grass court season starts a day after the French Open ends in early June and reaches a crescendo once the final matches are played at Wimbledon.
There are some grass court tournaments taking place this week, but the tennis world is now moving onto clay court events ahead of the Olympic Games in Paris, while the US hard court season will kick-off at the end of July.
Now three leading players have told Tennis365 that tennis needs to find a way to get more grass court tennis into the calendar, with Andrey Rublev, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Dusan Lajovic united in their belief that tennis would benefit from more action on the most traditional of surfaces.
The clay court season currently includes three ATP 1000 Masters events and concludes with the French Open at Roland Garros.
Meanwhile, there are no ATP 1000 events on grass and Rublev believes that could be changed.
“I would like to see more grass court tournaments, but the trouble is we only have 12 months in the year,” Rublev told Tennis365 at The Boodles tennis event.
“If we can make the some sacrifices with other tournaments, then maybe we can have more grass court events, but we always have this debate over how to fit everything into the season.”
Auger-Aliassime is another fans of grass court tennis and he believes a Masters 1000 event needs to be put in place for the grass season.
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“I had a fantastic first two years on grass and I love playing on the surface,” the Canadian told us.
“It would be great if we could get a Masters event on grass, for sure. Just trying to find a way to make it happen is the problem as the calendar is already so crowded.”
Serbian star Dusan Lajovic has not enjoyed his best results on grass, but he is keen to find a way to get higher profile tournaments on grass.
“I would definitely like to see a Masters series event on grass,” Lajovic told Tennis365, also speaking at The Boodles tennis event.
“All the other surfaces have a Masters event and clay has three, so it seems strange that we don’t have any on grass.
“I’ve been selected to be on the ATP Player Council this year and we are looking ahead to see how we can improve the schedule and one of the areas we will look at is getting more grass courts events in.
“The trouble is, the tennis season is already too long. You can see that players are getting injured. So we need to shorten the season, but that does not mean we cannot move some events to get more grass court tournaments.
Meanwhile, Britain’s LTA has confirmed that Queen’s Club will stage a WTA Tour event next summer in a reshuffle of the grass-court season.
The governing body of tennis in Britain has cited a desire to raise the profile of women’s tennis and promote it to more people for the changes, which will see the Birmingham and Eastbourne tournaments reduced in status.
The new women’s event, which will take place in the week following the French Open, means a tour level women’s tournament is coming to London for the first time in more than 50 years.
The Edgbaston Priory club in Birmingham, which has staged a WTA Tour event since 1982, will now host a combined men’s and women’s second-tier tournament in the second week of the French Open.
The joint men’s and women’s event in Nottingham will move to the same week as the men’s tournament at Queen’s, with the combined event in Eastbourne the week prior to Wimbledon now at the lowest 250 level for both tours.
The LTA revealed that a sticking point was concerns from the ATP over the impact on its event, second only in status to Wimbledon during the British grass swing, of a women’s tournament the previous week.
And Chris Pollard, the LTA’s director of major events and digital, admitted the arrangement could end up only being for a year if the male players are unhappy.
“We have absolute confidence that we can stage a two-week event at the Queen’s Club,” he said.
“Obviously the Championships at Wimbledon prove that grass can withstand two weeks of tennis. We’ve got independent data that really provides a lot of evidence that the men’s week will not suffer in any way, shape or form.
“We’ve had many discussions with both tours in respect of that. (The ATP) have given the green light for the tournament to take place in 2025 and we continue to have an ongoing dialogue with them in respect of the success of the 2025 tournament.
“They would like to consider what happens after 2025 but we remain in very close dialogue with them on that point and remain very confident that it will be a permanent change.”
Disparities in prize money levels between the tours mean the men will earn more money at their tournament, while Pollard stressed the LTA is committed to both events being on free-to-air TV.
