Column - Please, I am begging tennis to let December be December

Thursday, 10 September 2026 at 13:35

There are many things I would rather do in December than watch professional tennis.

I could reorganize the screws in my garage by circumference. I could read the terms and conditions for an iPhone software update. I could attempt to understand influencers. My interest in watching World Team Tennis is slightly lower than my interest in microwaving rolls of aluminum foil. And apparently I am getting World Team Tennis anyway.

WTT is coming back this December after a five-year absence, and the player list is legitimately impressive. Taylor Fritz. Frances Tiafoe. Jessica Pegula. Victoria Mboko. Leylah Fernandez. Denis Shapovalov. Tommy Paul. Iva Jović. Learner Tien. Camila Osorio.

These are not retired players doing a nostalgia tour. These are extremely relevant professional tennis players. Which raises the obvious question: Why? More specifically, why December?

Another event in an already packed schedule

I understand the business answer. December is the offseason. Players are available. Arenas can be booked. Sponsors can sponsor. Tickets can be sold. Everybody involved can make some money.

The players will reportedly receive ownership stakes in the league in addition to base fees and win bonuses. Good for them. Seriously.

If someone offered me money and equity to hit a tennis ball around Barclays Center in December, I would arrive sometime in late November.

This isn't really an argument against the players participating. It's an argument that tennis has become incapable of leaving empty space empty. There is tennis everywhere now.

There is the ATP Tour. The WTA Tour. Four majors. Masters events. 500s. 250s. Davis Cup. Billie Jean King Cup. United Cup. Laver Cup. Exhibitions. Mixed events. Money-spinning events in places with enormous money to spin.

There is tennis before the season. Tennis after the season. Tennis adjacent to the season. Tennis that isn't technically part of the season but nevertheless involves the same tennis players from the season playing tennis.

Frances Tiafoe and Taylor Fritz smiling and posing with Halle Open trophies

Frances Tiafoe and Taylor Fritz will compete at the 2026 World Team Tennis

December not a time for tennis

Enough. December should be mercilessly tennis-free. Not mostly tennis-free. Not tennis-free except for six matches involving several of the most famous American and Canadian players in the world. Completely, gloriously, aggressively tennis-free.

Give me nothing. That nothing has value. Professional sports occasionally forget this. Scarcity is part of what makes us care.

One of the great pleasures of tennis is waking up in January and realizing that it is back. Australia is happening. Everyone has resurfaced. Someone spent December rebuilding a forehand. Someone else changed coaches. Somebody you've barely thought about for two months suddenly looks incredible.

There is freshness to it. You know what makes something feel less like it has returned? When it never went away. This isn't entirely WTT's fault, of course. In fact, I have considerable affection for what World Team Tennis represents.

Billie Jean King helped create the original league in the 1970s, and the idea was radical in ways we shouldn't forget. Men and women competed together. Cities had teams. Traditional tennis conventions were tossed around. Stars including King, Chris Evert, Björn Borg, Rod Laver and Martina Navratilova participated. That was interesting. There are still interesting things about it.

The new version will have three teams in New York, Toronto and Florida. Each match includes men's and women's singles followed by mixed doubles. Six matches will be played between December 1 and December 15.

Too much tennis - time for a break

I'm sure some people will love it. I wish those people tremendous happiness. I also hope they understand that I will not be joining them. Because there is another issue here that goes beyond whether I personally want to watch Frances Tiafoe representing something called the New York Empire Racquet Club on December 2.

Players have spent years telling us the tennis calendar is too demanding. They're right. The season is absurdly long. Travel is relentless. The physical punishment accumulates. Mental fatigue is real. Players barely finish one season before preparations for the next one begin.

We have spent considerable time discussing player welfare, scheduling and whether professional tennis asks too much of its stars.

Then December arrives. And what does tennis do? Invent more tennis. Yes, I know this is voluntary. Yes, I know six WTT matches are not equivalent to another month of tour competition. Yes, I know players can make their own decisions about what is worthwhile.

But at some point the sport has to recognize that the solution to an oversaturated calendar cannot always be another event. Sometimes the best product is anticipation.

Let Fritz disappear for a month. Let Pegula go somewhere warm without somebody keeping score. Let Tiafoe post vacation photos. Let Iva Jović be 18. Let all of them put their rackets in a closet for five minutes if they want to. And let us miss them.

This is becoming a strange concept in modern sports because everything is optimized for engagement. Every week needs content. Every empty weekend needs programming. Every dormant property can be rebooted. Every offseason is apparently a market inefficiency waiting for somebody with a spreadsheet to fix it.

But fans aren't infinite wells of attention. At some point, more becomes less. By the end of the U.S. Open, we've been watching tennis since January. Then comes the Asian swing. Then the indoor season. Then the year-end championships. Then Davis Cup.

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I love this sport. That's exactly why I want it to go away. Just briefly. I want to miss the ridiculous rallies. I want to forget who is defending how many ranking points in Adelaide. I want to stop thinking about hard courts and second serves and protected rankings. I want December.

Then January can arrive, Melbourne can appear on my television at some completely unreasonable hour, and I'll happily surrender my sleep and sanity all over again. Absence does something marketing departments have spent billions trying to manufacture. It makes people want you back.

So I wish World Team Tennis tremendous success. I wish the players substantial checks, valuable equity and packed arenas. I hope everybody involved has an absolutely wonderful time. I will be doing something else. Possibly involving aluminum foil.

Aron SolomonGuest Author

A Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist for his groundbreaking op-ed in The Independent exposing the NFL’s “race-norming” policies, Aron Solomon, JD, is a globally recognized thought leader in law, media, and strategy.

As Chief Strategy Officer for AMPLIFY, he leverages his deep expertise to shape the future of legal marketing. Aron has taught entrepreneurship at McGill University and the University of Pennsylvania and was honored as a Fastcase 50 recipient, recognizing him among the world’s top legal innovators. A prolific commentator on law, business, and culture, his insights regularly appear in Newsweek, The Hill, Crunchbase News, and Literary Hub.

He has also been featured in The New York Times, Fast Company, Fortune, Forbes, CBS News, CNBC, USA Today, ESPN, TechCrunch, BuzzFeed, Venture Beat and countless other leading global media outlets. We are proud to have Aron on board at TennisUpToDate, where his deep tennis expertise enriches the site with sharp, original columns that connect the sport to wider cultural debates.

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