Tennis scheduling under fire in Annacone's latest remarks

Paul Annacone, the ex-coach of former world number one Roger Federer, has criticised the tennis calendar and called it ‘ridiculous’. There has been a lot of noise regarding the schedule in tennis in recent years, and some notable players have raised their voices about it.

The most prominent of those were women’s world number one, Iga Swiatek, and men’s world number three, Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz. Annacone became another voice who expressed concern about the amount of tennis being played nowadays. The 61-year-old was recently quoted in a report where he talked about the early exits of the American duo of Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe.

Fritz, who became the first American player in the last 18 years to play in the final of the US Open recently, lost in the first round of the Japan Open against France’s Arthur Fils in straight sets with a score of 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. On the other hand, Tiafoe also lost in the first round of the ATP event in Tokyo against fellow American Brandon Nakashima, who came out on top in straight sets with a score of 7-5, 6-3. Not surprisingly, both players were heavily involved in the recently concluded Laver Cup, in which they represented Team World.

Annacone was of the opinion that it was ‘ridiculous’ for players to travel all the way a day after playing in the Laver Cup and then have no rest in between before the start of their campaign in Tokyo.

“No excuse for any of those boys [Fritz and Tiafoe] that is what it is,” said the 61-year-old as quoted by The Tennis Gazette. “But the schedule doesn’t work, it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out, it’s just getting more and more congested. It’s ridiculous for anyone to play an event of the magnitude of the Laver Cup which is so great and phenomenal and so emotionally charged and fly to Tokyo, get to Asia Tuesday morning after flying all night and then playing the next day. It’s a circus. The tennis calendar has always been a circus and we don’t do ourselves any favours with it do we?”