LONDON (Reuters) -Tennis players do not have an off-season to recover physically and mentally, Alexander Zverev said on Saturday, but the world number three added that he had no complaints as he chose this life and it rewards him well.
Player welfare has been under intense scrutiny after the Professional Tennis Players’ Association (PTPA) filed a lawsuit against the sport’s governing bodies in March.
One of their grievances was the hectic 11-month schedule which they described as “unsustainable”.
“It’s just the continuity of not having breaks. It’s a subject that has been there just for a very long time,” Zverev told reporters ahead of Wimbledon.
“I just don’t think we have an off-season. I don’t think we have time to mentally rest (and) physically rest.
“But all in all, I don’t want to complain because I love being a tennis player. I love playing tennis. We are all complaining on a very, very high level, right?”
The distribution of prize money was another factor in the lawsuit, although the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) boosted its total prize money for this year’s Championships to 53.5 million pounds ($73.37 million), a 7% increase on 2024.
The singles champions will receive three million pounds each, the highest across all Grand Slams, while players who lose in the first round get 66,000 pounds.
“We’re all making kind of a good amount of money. We’re travelling the world. We’re living in five-star hotels most of the time,” Zverev added.
“Sometimes you maybe want to sit on the couch and not do anything, but that’s the life we chose. To be honest, it was always my dream to be a tennis player. I feel like I’m living that dream and I’m enjoying it.”
Zverev has reached the final at every Grand Slam apart from Wimbledon where he has never made the quarter-finals. The German has never won a grasscourt title on the ATP Tour either, losing three finals.
The 28-year-old German warmed up for Wimbledon with two grasscourt tournaments in Stuttgart and Halle — where he reached the final and semi-finals.
“People are forgetting I’m still number three in the world and I’m number three in the race,” he said.
“I’ve had a few losses here and there, which were normal, which were maybe unexpected. I feel like my form has been coming back the last few weeks.”
($1 = 0.7292 pounds)
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru. Editing by Ed Osmond)
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