Professional Tennis Has a Recovery Problem

The number of professional tennis players speaking publicly about mental health in the last four years is staggering: Marty Fish, Ash Barty, Naomi Osaka, Iga Swiatek, Bianca Andreescu, Madison Keys, Sara Sorribes Tormo, and more recently, Carlos Alcaraz and Casper Ruud. While each of these athletes has their own unique experiences and relationship to their mental health, there is often a through-line to their stories: the unrelenting, grueling schedule of professional tennis and the travel it requires is not promoting the wellbeing of the athletes. On a recent episode of Andy Roddick’s podcast Served, journalist Jon Wertheim posed a question: is the sport of tennis more prone to mental health struggles than other sports, or are tennis players more vocal about their mental health due to the growing acceptance and slowly diminishing stigma surrounding mental health in sport? They concluded that there’s no easy answer. 

With the advancement of injury prevention and recovery, as well as the employment of full-time physios, players now have more opportunities than ever to extend the longevity of their professional playing careers. However, is the current tour schedule allowing players to compete for as long as they want to? The pressure to uphold ranking points and financial earnings is not incentivizing athletes to prioritize their mental and physical wellbeing, potentially leading to burnout and overuse injuries.

Growing up in the ‘90s, one of the first times I ever heard about tennis players opting out of a traditional tennis schedule was Richard Williams’ decision to not have his daughters play junior tennis. Venus and Serena went straight into the pros at fourteen-years-old, against the guidance of many coaches and professionals. Any doubts of Venus and Serena’s ability to compete were quickly squashed. The Williams sisters continued to push back against the conventions of professional tennis, as they opted out of large chunks of the tour schedule and took on interests outside of their sport that included fashion, interior design, and higher education. They did this while continuing to take home one grand slam trophy after another. Serena became the greatest of all time, with a playing career lasting 27 years. As of the publishing of this post, Venus has not yet officially retired.

In the Netflix limited docuseries Carlos Alcaraz: My Way (Carlos Alcaraz: A Mi Manera) that was released in April 2025, a recurring theme is the tension between Carlos’ desire to take time off in between tournaments, and the insistence of his coach Juan Carlos Ferrero and agent Albert Molina that in order to be one of the greatest of all time, you have to be a slave to the sport, dedicated to training 24/7. Tennis is unique in that, at 21 years old, Carlos is his coach’s employer. Ultimately it is he who gets to call the shots to decide when he wants to reconnect with his family or blow off steam with his friends in Ibiza for six days, even when Juan Carlos strongly suggests that these are poor decisions. While there are more demands placed on athletes who are essentially CEOs of small businesses: managing their own brands and in charge of hiring and firing their own teams, tennis players do have much more control over how and how often they want to train than athletes in other sports. Notably, Alcaraz won his fifth grand slam title at Roland Garros in June 2025.

Recovery is a critical aspect of the flow cycle: it helps athletes regain physiological and psychological resources that are utilized in training and competition. While physical fatigue may require a player to get sleep and stay in one place, mental fatigue may necessitate a change of scenery and/or a distraction from all sport-related demands (Balk & Englert, 2020). There is no one right protocol for all athletes; the most important thing is for athletes to be able to monitor themselves and identify their own physical, mental, and emotional state. 

In 2016, Serena played the most selective schedule of her career, competing in only eight tournaments. She told Ben Rothenberg at The New York Times: ​​”This year, I didn’t play, and I actually took time off from everything. I really think it made a world of difference. I just feel a little bit more refreshed than I did last year. I just learned from that mistake. I was like, ‘Serena, you’re going to take some days off and just not do anything.’ I think that was the best thing I could have done.’” There was a cost to Serena’s reduced schedule: after three years at the #1 spot, she fell to #2 in the world rankings. She then started off the 2017 season by winning the Australian Open 2017 singles title while she was pregnant with her first child.

For those players who cannot afford to take time off, because that would mean the difference between whether or not they could pay a coach or support their families, what options are they given to properly recover? And what message are we sending to the next generation of athletes coming up? Our athletes deserve better.