Mark Petchey has completely disagreed with what he’s heard some players complain about, even branding their conduct ‘completely unacceptable’.
This came during a debate alongside Jim Courier, where the two argued whether the tennis off-season was too short.
And whilst both came to the same conclusion, they did also fire a few shots in the direction of the current crop of players, many of whom have been keen to lambast the ATP and WTA Tours for not solving their scheduling issues.
Petchey was by far the more passionate of the two, slamming such conduct during an impassioned speech.
Mark Petchey disagrees with player complaints
Speaking on Tennis Channel, the former coach of Emma Raducanu admitted: “I think that’s what part of the problem. People are out there, and a lot of the time, of course, it’s 20-year-olds that are obviously at the start of their career that may be just tossing comments out, they’re hearing it from people in their kind of stratosphere, atmosphere, and then they’re making comments.”
He then made a comparison between tennis players and those playing professional basketball, adding: “I was actually having a look at the NBA teams this year, obviously, Oklahoma won the NBA last year. They played 105 games last year. No tennis player is playing 105 singles matches in the season. They also play in a much more condensed time. October through to the end of June, if you include the playoffs.
“So, you know, the reality is there’s a lot of sports out there that are playing just as much as these tennis players, and what I disagree with massively is that they have a seat at the table in terms of these discussions, and they publicly go out and firebomb their own tour, which I think is completely unacceptable, I think, from a commercial point of view.”
Petchey’s scepticism then extended to the announcement of a new Masters 1000 tournament in Saudi Arabia, concluding: “And we haven’t heard anything about putting on a new Masters 1000. No one’s grumbled about that, because there’s going to be a huge amount of dollars going into that tournament.
“But that’s an extra tournament that you have to play.”
What top players have complained about the tennis schedule?
Naturally, there’s a whole host of elite-level players who have voiced their concerns about player welfare in this regard.
Carlos Alcaraz has complained about the schedule, whilst Taylor Fritz and Jack Draper spoke on social media about the physical toll of the tour too, agreeing it demanded too much of them.
However, perhaps the most vocal of all the players on both the ATP and WTA Tours has been Iga Swiatek, and she has even recently insisted that she’s willing to risk fines in 2026 to ensure her own safety.
The former world number one noted: “I won’t be looking next year at which tournaments are mandatory and which ones I could get fined for.
“I’ll arrange my schedule the way I think it should be.”
In making this stand, Petchey has gone against some of tennis’s most prominent figures currently playing on the tours.
