Is the off-season long enough? "There’s actually a lot more off-season than many people realise"

The tennis schedule has been on the tip of the tongues of many players, pundits and fans across the world. It was propelled back into the mainstream after the news broke that Saudi Arabia will be getting a Masters 1000 event in 2028. This has led to concerns about the length of the off-season.

Despite it being mid-November, the tennis season has still got some big tournaments to decide, most notably on the men's side. The ATP Finals are set to conclude this weekend in Turin while the Davis Cup Finals are set to follow shortly after. If your season culminates after representing your country, then you have at least six weeks before tennis goes Down Under to commence the 2026 campaign.

"I heard Jack Draper say that an ideal off-season for him would be six weeks off. Well, guess what — the players with the least amount of time off are those who make the Davis Cup Final next week," Jim Courier said, counter-arguing the complaints on the Tennis Channel.

"If you’re a WTA top-100 player who didn’t make the WTA Finals, you get 10 weeks off since the last mandatory event — which was the WTA 500 in Tokyo. For the men, the last mandatory event was the Paris Masters 1000 — that’s nine weeks off. The WTA finalists finished last week, so they get two months off. The guys who are playing now but not going to the Davis Cup Final, like Jannik Sinner, get seven weeks off. So there’s actually a lot more off-season than many people realise," the former world number one explained.

Emma Raducanu's former coach Mark Petchey came to his colleague's side. "I couldn’t agree with you more. That’s part of the problem. A lot of the time, it’s 20-year-olds at the start of their careers making these comments — maybe repeating things they’ve heard from people around them," he said.

He would draw a comparison between tennis and basketball schedules. "I was actually looking at the NBA schedule this year. Oklahoma City won the NBA last season — they played 105 games. No tennis player is playing 105 singles matches in a year," Petchey stated. "And they play that within a much more condensed time frame — from October through June if you include the playoffs. So in reality, there are a lot of sports where athletes are competing just as much as tennis players."

Numerous stars have stood up and called out the increasing number of tournaments throughout the year, despite some being mandatory to play. Petchey has described this as 'unacceptable.' "What I disagree with massively is that players publicly firebomb their own tour. From a commercial point of view, that’s completely unacceptable," Petchey remarked.

"And interestingly, no one’s complaining about the new Masters 1000 tournament being added, because there’s going to be a huge amount of money involved in that. But that’s still an extra tournament they’ll have to play. Now, just to clarify, it won’t be fully mandatory — it’ll be like Monte Carlo, where everyone will want to be there, but technically it’s not required. That’s an important distinction."

Petchey went on to talk more about the freedom tennis players have in picking and choosing some events they want to compete in. He used Jannik Sinner as a prime example, with him missing a plethora if big events but still competing at the top, winning a whole host of titles and fighting for the number one spot.

"But tennis players do have one big advantage — they’re independent contractors," Petchey said. "If they don’t want to play, they don’t have to. Jannik Sinner is a perfect example. Obviously, not entirely by choice, but he skipped multiple Masters 1000s this year — and he’s still right in the hunt for World No. 1. The events are called 'mandatory' because if you want to be part of the bonus pool and get that big check at the end of the year, you need to play them. Sure, you might get fined if you skip one, but the tours are flexible — there’s grey area, and they’re often willing to listen to players’ reasons for withdrawing."