The paradox dividing tennis: exhausted players and a saturated calendar, yet ever more exhibitions
While players have been denouncing for years a calendar with an infernal pace and a season with no respite, exhibitions organized in December have never been so numerous.
Between complaints about fatigue, six-figure appearance fees and a multiplication of events financed by various actors, the off-season has turned into a booming parallel market. A system in which tennis reveals its contradictions.
THE CALENDAR PARADOX: EXHAUSTED PLAYERS BUT ALWAYS ON COURT
For more than ten years, calendar overload has become one of the most frequent refrains in the tennis world. Top-10 stars as well as top-100 players keep repeating the same observation: the season is too long, recovery is insufficient and bodies are wearing out faster than ever.
"The ATP has to do something about the calendar," Carlos Alcaraz said during the season, before adding: "We don't really have moments where we can take time to practice or to rest."
On the women’s side, world No. 2 Iga Swiatek is one of the most frequent critics of the situation: "When I take a look at the calendar, I think we play way too much. The calendar is crazy. It’s very demanding and difficult."
Extended Masters 1000 and WTA 1000, the cause of a saturated calendar
Yet a paradox stands out: despite these recurring complaints, players have never played so many matches, including outside official competitions.
The ATP/WTA season runs from early January to mid-November, nearly eleven months of competition. The off-season, supposedly lasting four to six weeks, should allow players to treat their injuries, recover, build up physically and also work on specific aspects of their game for the coming season.
In reality, this break period is gradually disappearing, mainly because of exhibitions. As throughout the year, players make several trips, but this time for just a few days of competition, which inevitably cuts into their rest time.
The extension of Masters 1000 and WTA 1000 tournaments to twelve days has also reinforced the saturation of the calendar. Madrid, Rome, Montreal/Toronto, Cincinnati or Shanghai now function almost like Grand Slams, with prolonged on-site presence and a level of demand that remains high for nearly two weeks.
Are women better off than men?
On the ATP Tour, Monte Carlo is the only major tournament that players are allowed to skip: the other eight Masters 1000 must be played, under penalty of financial sanctions, such as a 25% reduction of their year-end bonus in case of withdrawal.
Women, on the other hand, enjoy a bit more freedom: Rome, Montreal/Toronto, Cincinnati are not mandatory, nor are Doha and Dubai, two events held over one week.
But overall, the situation is the same for both tours: the breaks between tournaments are disappearing, and players can sometimes spend an entire month away from home (back-to-backs Indian Wells–Miami in March, Madrid–Rome in May and Montreal/Toronto–Cincinnati in August), training and in the end playing only a handful of matches.
Fewer matches but a much more physical style of play
Paradoxically, today’s male players play fewer matches than in the era of Thomas Muster or Yevgeny Kafelnikov in the 1990s. Muster, for example, played 104 matches in 1995 (the year he won 12 titles), Kafelnikov 105 in 1995 and 1996, and 101 in 2000.
By contrast, a modern top-10 player plays between 65 and 80 matches, and a world No. 1 generally finishes between 70 and 85 matches, like Carlos Alcaraz in 2025 (71 wins, 9 losses). But the physical intensity has exploded with slower courts, longer rallies, greater media demands and a more homogeneous level of play.
In this context, the proliferation of exhibitions in December (nearly ten in 2025) reinforces the paradox between talk of fatigue and constant presence on court.
YEAR-END EXHIBITIONS, A BUSINESS THAT HAS BECOME UNAVOIDABLE
While players denounce a calendar that has become unsustainable, which no longer offers them real recovery periods, exhibitions keep multiplying, to the point of now being treated as mini-events in their own right, closely followed by fans and the media.
Yet, ten or fifteen years ago, when the Big 3 (Federer, Nadal, Djokovic) dominated the tour, year-end exhibitions could almost be counted on the fingers of one hand.
The most emblematic remained the Mubadala World Tennis Championship, created in 2009 in Abu Dhabi. The concept, very simple, found its audience: a three-day exhibition, scheduled for late December or early January, designed as a warm-up before the Australian Open.
The format (two quarterfinals, two semifinals, one final – all best-of-three sets) was simple and the quality of the fields sometimes gave the impression of an official tournament.
With $250,000 promised to the winner, the event even acquired a certain prestige. From 2009 to 2022, it hosted all the major stars: Nadal won it five times, Djokovic four. A women’s event was even added in 2017, further strengthening the status of this now-unmissable rendezvous.
But faced with the rise of more spectacular, more lucrative and less physically demanding events, the competition ended up disappearing in 2022.
Ever more enticing names
Today, December looks like a parallel circuit: the UTS (Ultimate Tennis Showdown) Grand Final in London, the Miami Invitational, the Garden Cup in New York, exhibitions in India, Macao, Dubai or China.
The names of these events, often spectacular, are designed to catch the eye and maintain public interest, even at a time when fans, already saturated with tennis for nearly eleven months, still seem ready to consume more.
Scheduling also relies on the appeal of stars: Carlos Alcaraz is taking part in a mini American tour, Aryna Sabalenka is the headliner of the exhibition at Madison Square Garden, while Daniil Medvedev and Gaël Monfils head to India to play a few mixed-team matches.
Some even extend into January, like this exhibition in South Korea, scheduled just before the Australian Open, featuring a showdown between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
For organizers, the ingredients are simple: total freedom regarding the calendar, short formats and high profitability. Stars can be approached without the constraints of the ATP or WTA, while they enjoy appearance fees sometimes comparable to those of official tournaments, for a reduced effort.
"UTS events are well paid, which makes them very competitive"
The UTS, a competition created in 2020 by Patrick Mouratoglou, offers particularly attractive rewards each year during its finals weekend held in December in London. The total prize money reaches 1.6 million euros, with a cheque of up to 500,000 euros for the winner.
Designed above all for entertainment, the format focuses on immediate intensity rather than duration. Players face off in eight-minute quarters – winning three is enough to take the match – with only one serve allowed, some points counting triple and no breaks between rallies.
It’s a model that generates rhythm without demanding the physical effort of a traditional match and that, for example, convinced Alex de Minaur to take part:
"It’s exciting and different, it gives you a different view of how to play points. UTS events are well paid, which makes them very competitive. We’re all trying to win that big cheque at the end of the week, it motivates everyone."
Today, exhibitions are no longer just brief interludes nestled in the heart of the off-season. They serve as an additional source of income, a testing ground for new, shorter and more spectacular formats, and a showcase platform for players at a time when the official season should in theory give way to rest.
TENNIS AT A CROSSROADS: REGULATE THE OFF-SEASON OR EMBRACE THESE EXHIBITIONS?
Year after year, tennis is sliding toward an off-season that looks more like a period of commercial exploitation than a genuine break.
December, once viewed as a precious breathing space when tennis moved into the background, has now turned into a month overloaded with exhibitions, experimental formats and events designed for show.
The question now is: should the sport’s global governing bodies protect the off-season, or allow these events to embed themselves after eleven months of intense competition?
"Tennis deserves a real off-season"
For some players, the answer is obvious. Alexander Zverev, a three-time Grand Slam finalist, has hammered it home: "We feel like we’re playing more and more, and the calendar is more packed than ever. Tennis deserves a real off-season."
Tallon Griekspoor, a top-30 player, prefers to be cautious: "In general, I try not to play too many exhibition matches because we don't have a lot of time to rest."
What is being requested is therefore a real break, far from the four to six weeks constantly eaten away by additional commitments. But the paradox is huge: those who denounce an unbearable calendar are regularly the ones featured on exhibition posters.
"It’s very different, we just have fun playing tennis"
The most striking example is Carlos Alcaraz, often forced to defend himself in front of the press about his complaints regarding the calendar and his participation in various exhibitions:
"Exhibitions are different from official tournaments. In those tournaments, you have to stay very focused and put in physical effort for 15 or 16 days in a row. Here, we just have fun playing tennis for a day or two."
Despite these arguments, the off-season is starting to become a myth, with players’ recovery and preparation time reduced by those days spent away from practice courts.
Imagining a long break, comparable to that of the NBA (nearly four months of rest, preparation or recovery), would force the governing bodies to reinvent the calendar by removing tournaments and changing the dates of events that everyone knows.
The ATP is gradually reducing the number of ATP 250 events (from 38 to 29 between 2015 and 2025, with a further reduction to 10 planned in the future), but this evolution remains a cosmetic adjustment of the calendar aimed at encouraging top players to prioritize the biggest events. It is in no way linked to the proliferation of exhibitions eating into the off-season.
A lack of collective voice
The other stumbling block lies at the heart of the system: players’ status. Unlike footballers or basketball players, they are not employed by a club or a league. They are their own bosses, free to commit wherever they want.
Andrea Gaudenzi, ATP president, underlined this: "Our players can decide their own schedule. Some choose to play exhibitions. Shorten the season? Yes, but they can also decide to play fewer exhibitions and spend more time resting."
A sentence that sums up the whole problem: the governing bodies do not have the legal tools to limit exhibitions or impose a mandatory break.
So how can anyone ask players to give up these ultra-lucrative events, where they sometimes earn in one weekend what some tournaments can offer after several matches played?
Differing opinions, a changing model
Even the PTPA (Professional Tennis Players Association), often presented as the hope of a collective voice among players, is struggling to get everyone on the same page.
Top players want to maximize their income and visibility, players outside the top 100 need additional revenue, institutions want to protect their calendar and private promoters take advantage of the lack of rules regarding the off-season.
The result: everyone is pulling in a different direction, and no clear solution is emerging.
Tennis thus finds itself facing a paradox that, for now, suits everyone but in the long run could weaken players and blur the clarity of the calendar. A long season, a break that is no longer really a break, increasingly numerous exhibitions: the model is changing without any real debate being settled.
BETWEEN OFF-SEASON AND EXHIBITIONS, AN EQUILIBRIUM TO REINVENT
The rise of December exhibitions raises questions today about the real place of the off-season in tennis. Conceived as a time of rest, it is shrinking under the effect of private events that are hard to regulate, since players remain free to set their own schedules.
Between the idea of an extended rest period and that of a model where exhibitions would be more regulated, no decision has been made. The future of the off-season will depend on the governing bodies’ ability to reconcile recovery, economic constraints and the evolution of the spectacle.
The paradox dividing tennis: exhausted players and a saturated calendar, yet ever more exhibitions 
Training future champions: spotlight on the decline of the French public model facing private academies 
Is padel threatening tennis? Inside the revolution shaking up the established order 
Features - Saudi Arabia, injuries, war, and business: the fascinating underbelly of tennis revealed by TennisTemple 
