Patrick Mouratoglou says there’s a clear reason for amount of injuries in tennis and it has nothing to do with the schedule

Tennis has a clear injury problem in 2026 and it is having a severe impact on the biggest tournaments on the calendar.

The top players on the ATP Tour have been struggling all year, and it has only been emphasised by Carlos Alcaraz’s five-month stint away from tennis.

Just as the Spaniard is ready to come back, his great rival, Jannik Sinner, has withdrawn from US Open due to a knee injury.

The likes of Holger Rune, Arthur Fils, and Jack Draper have all suffered high-profile injuries over the past year too and it is becoming an epidemic on the ATP Tour.

Many have used the hectic schedule as the reason for so many injuries, but Patrick Mouratoglou believes that is not the main reason for so many top players missing action on the ATP Tour.

More tennis news

Speaking on Instagram, the former coach of Serena Williams said: “You know the reason, the calendar? I don’t think so. I have a completely different explanation. Since the early 2000s, the governing bodies have decided to slow down the surfaces and homogenise them.

“Some surfaces that used to be very fast are not fast anymore.

“Now, most of the players play fully from the baseline, hitting the ball extremely hard with a very high intensity. Look at the injuries that are listed. It’s only upper body injuries.

“We’re not talking about the movement. One of the explanations is the fact that, you know, all the players have to hit the ball way harder than before. The second explanation is the balls. First, from one tournament to the other, it’s a different ball.

“Some are lighter. Some are heavier. It’s constant adaptation for your upper body, and constant different stress on the joints of the upper body. A lot of players have complained that the balls are reacting differently. They get old extremely fast.

“So I think that it’s important that the governing bodies at this point, knowing now that there is a huge increase in injuries from the upper body, work to find the explanation of this phenomenon and then find solutions so we go back to a percentage of injury that is acceptable.”

Mouratoglou is not the first person in tennis to complain about the balls.

Earlier this year, Emma Raducanu said: “I do think the balls are a big challenge for all of us. The way that they deteriorate is really challenging.

“I think it gets very fluffy. You see a lot of wrist, elbow, shoulder injuries happening now. And it is hard because the dynamic of the points can be different from when they’re new to when they’re old.”

Daniil Medvedev, meanwhile, has been consistently outspoken about the quality of the balls on the ATP Tour.

“I’m crying because it disadvantages me,” he said earlier this year at the Rotterdam Open. “But if you take six balls out of the new balls out of the can, if you look closely and you bounce them, there are going to be six different balls. I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

It will surely not be long before the powers that be in tennis look to change one of the key things top players have complained about for some time now.