Novak Djokovic on Wednesday said it would be difficult to cut down on tournaments despite the leading men's players complaining that the packed calendar is shortening careers.
"We can't expect just to shorten the season by a month or two, because that would hurt certain tournaments," the Serb said in an interview to The Independent.
After being forced to pull out of the Shanghai Masters on Tuesday, American Andy Roddick said governing body the ATP must give players a proper off-season or risk shortening the careers of its billboard names.
"It's ridiculous to think that you have a professional sport that doesn't have a legitimate off-season to rest, get healthy and then train. We finish around 30 November and have to be pretty much Grand Slam-ready by 4 January, year after year after year," Roddick had said.
While the women's WTA tour concludes in Doha on November 1 the men's top eight contest the ATP World Tour finals at the end of November while the Davis Cup final is in December, less than a month before the new season begins on January 1.
"We've been saying for a long time that it's tough to compete 11 months a year, yet we actually end up finishing the season a little bit later now. I don't think it's coincidental that you see Murray and Roger a little bit hurt now, or Rafa missing four months in the middle of the year, or maybe some odd results from Del Potro and myself last week. I just hope that the short-sightedness doesn't affect the length of players' careers. In tennis you definitely want your stars around as long as possible," the American added.
However, Djokovic, who himself hosts a clay-court tournament in hometown Belgrade, said ATP is working hard to find the best possible solution after constant discussions with the players.
"The current leadership of the ATP is willing to do a lot of things for the players. We have already talked about it at the US Open and we have to dedicate the whole half-a-day meeting to this, because it's a very sensitive task. It affects both players and tournaments.
"We have to make a compromise. The ATP is an association of tournaments and players together. The bottom line is that you don't want to have injured players. The schedule, in my opinion, is too long, but we have to go step by step and try to solve it. We will work on doing something that is comfortable to both the players and the tournaments in the future. The tournaments still understand their job and their obligations better than we understand their job and vice versa. But the players now are more united than ever," Djokovic said.
