Reilly Opelka has criticized the ATP's carbon tracker program, saying it is purely about PR and doesn't enact meaningful change in a sport where players have to fly across continents throughout the year.

The app was introduced in June 2023 in a bid to help players cut down their carbon footprint by calculating the amount of carbon emitted by their journeys to various tournaments.

In a post on Instagram, the ATP recently shared that the app had been used by over 200 players, including Andrey Rublev, Dominic Thiem, Cameron Norrie, and Emil Ruusuvuori. They also announced that Mackenzie McDonald was the most successful player on the app at reducing his carbon footprint.

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Opelka says app is purely PR

However, American player Opelka called out the app, labeling it as a PR move in order to avoid making substantial change and suggesting that the ATP should stop scheduling tournaments in a way that forced players to fly to several different countries and continents every other week.

"If sustainability was such a concern for the ATP why does our schedule say otherwise? Can drinking from a metal water bottle really offset flying from australia to south america, to usa, to europe, back to us, to asia, back to europe in 10 months?

"They post it about it every week so clearly its a concern.. so why not adjust the schedule to avoid players flying with a coach and physio overseas every other week? Planting trees for one person, doesnt off set anything.

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"But its great optics. The mentality of something is better than nothing does not seem to be getting us anywhere. if they really cared about carbon footprint, they would look at the schedule. Other it's just pr and optics," he wrote.

The 26-year-old has been absent from the ATP Tour all of this season due to injury, having last competed at the 2022 DC Open where he lost to Nick Kyrgios in straight sets.

Greg

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