Pablo Carreno Busta has joined a multitude of other tennis players - including Stefanos Tsitsipas, Daniil Medvedev, and Taylor Fritz - in criticizing the continuous ball changes on the ATP and WTA Tours, claiming that it contributed to his injury.
The former World No. 10 won his maiden Masters 1000 title at the Canadian Open in August 2022 but has been dealing with injuries for much of the time since then.
He has played only three ATP Tour-level tournaments in 2023 - the Australian Open, the Adelaide International 2, and the Rotterdam Open - and managed only one win before halting his season due to injury.
In a recent interview with Punto de Break, the 32-year-old said that he believes the frequent ball changes have contributed to his injuries.
"I'm sure the balls have something to do with my injury," he said, "Before Roland Garros I was training with some balls at the Academy to recover from the injury and it was going well. I switched to the Roland Garros balls and after 20 minutes I had to stop because [the injury] had become inflamed again. It is clear that the balls are very different, and the continuous change of balls has an influence."
Carreno Busta is currently competing at the Malaga Challenger event where he has reached the Round of 16 following a first-round defeat at the JC Ferrero Challenger Open last week. He also revealed that the problems with ball changes is worse on the Challenger Tour.
"On the Challenger circuit it is even worse, because more are changed, but on the ATP circuit a lot of balls are also changed," he continued.
Multiple tennis players have spoken out recently about ball changes leading to a greater risk of injury.
In a conversation on X, formerly known as Twitter, Portuguese player Gastao Elias demanded that the ATP Tour pay for the physiotherapy required for injuries caused by ball changes, which was supported by Paula Badosa, Lauren Davis, and Tennys Sandgren.
In an interview with @puntodbreak, Pablo Carreno Busta – recently returned on court after his elbow injury – joined the list of players who have complained about tennis balls and how they can cause or worsen injuries. 🎙️🇪🇸 "I'm sure that the balls are related to my injury. For…
