 "Carlos Alcaraz is currently making his maiden appearance at the ATP Tour event in Rotterdam, where he defeated Netherlands' Botic van de Zandschulp. Reuters")
World No 3 Carlos Alcaraz has made another suggestion to the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in order to prioritise the well-being of players. After previously speaking out against the schedule for being too congested and giving players little time to recover, the Spaniard has advised the ATP Tour against using different types of balls for its wide variety of events.
Alcaraz, who is currently making his maiden appearance at the Rotterdam Open, opened up on the challenges of players having to adjust to different types of balls across a variety of conditions, adding that they contributed to player injuries.
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“I think there were a lot of injuries last year, a lot of players with elbow or shoulder injuries,” Alcaraz said after beating Botic van de Zandschulp 7-6 (3), 3-6, 6-1 in the opening round of ATP Rotterdam on Wednesday.
“They need to change something. I know they’re going to change it. Every week, practically every week we have different balls, different conditions, so it’s difficult to adapt to it.
“I have not had physical problems because of it so far, I work every day to be in shape, right now I’m fine,” added the four-time Grand Slam champion.
American Taylor Fritz, who sits one place below Alcaraz in the men’s world rankings, had recently picked up an oblique injury due to the tennis balls.
“I was trying to recover a bit from an injury, I hurt myself before.
“It was my oblique it was caused by the balls that were supposed to be the same as the ones we were using here and the ones we used in Australia, but they just weren’t,” Fritz told the Tennis Channel.
Alcaraz, however, maintained that players could still showcase a “good level of tennis” despite the challenge of having to adjust to different types of balls.
“New balls, everything seems to move very fast… and after two or three exchanges, the ball becomes very big and it’s a bit difficult to play aggressively with them.
“Still, I don’t want to complain about it; I feel that even so, you can show a good level of tennis,” said Alcaraz, who had recently suffered a quarter-final exit at the hands of Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open despite winning the opening set.