‘It’s All About Money’- Alexander Zverev Minces No Words as He Seemingly Jabs at ATP in Harsh Response to Tennis Journalist

“I’m so angry, I can’t even tell you. The scheduling is a disgrace,” – We saw how Alexander Zverev blasted the Olympic tennis schedule after his disappointing exit from the event at the hands of Lorenzo Musetti. Tennis scheduling has been a hot topic over the last few years, and the debate shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. Recently, Zverev was spotted engaging in a heated argument with a journalist over this persistent problem in the tennis world.

Alexander Zverev had a tense conversation with the journalist, who demanded that the players mobilize to change the demanding ATP calendar. The German claimed, “There is no sport in which so much is at stake, this cannot continue like this. The health of the players is being put at risk, it is inconceivable that we start a season on December 29 and finish it in the second week of November.” After hearing this, the journalist asked him if the players had taken any advantage of the opportunity to talk to each other during these days and if they had planned to come up with some common maneuver to put pressure on.

Hearing this, the atmosphere inside the room got a bit intense as the German asked the journalist, “For what? It’s all about money here, that’s all the ATP cares about, we players have no decision-making power.” Then the journalist encouraged them to join together and do something. Alexander Zverev then added, “Ok, what would you do? Tell me. No, seriously. Many times journalists come here to ask us things that are impossible to answer, now I want to know what you would do.“

He claimed that if the players want to fight for important things like being world number one and winning Grand Slams with this type of schedule, then they have to play many weeks a year. And, according to him, that’s “unsustainable“. Zverev stated that this week they can talk and agree on many things, but at the same time, it’s very much true that they can’t change anything. “It’s all about money. Tournaments have a license and we can’t do anything about that,” he revealed. Zverev then went on to explain to the journalist that since the tournaments have licenses, it’s literally impossible to cancel tournaments. He stated that they’ll later have to compensate for that too!

So it’s “not viable” according to Zverev. Despite explaining it elaborately, another media colleague continued to insist, and this time things went a bit out of control. Alexander Zverev bluntly responded, “Ok, I’ll listen to you and we’ll boycott. We stop competing, we’ll boycott, and what? Do you think that’s going to change anything? We’d lose money, other players would take our place and nothing would change in the calendar. I only trust in the steps that the PTPA is taking to make us heard, but it’s an issue that, in the short term, has no solution.” Not only Zverev, but we’ve also seen many other players speaking along the same lines in the last few months. Let’s take a look at some of those reactions.

Several players have been speaking on the same lines with Alexander Zverev in the last few months

During the US Open, we saw Andy Murray saying, “The tennis scheduling situation is a total mess.” After the Olympics, we saw Iga Swiatek claim that she doesn’t think the sport is going in the right direction. Later on, she even stated, “Our Calendar is Crazy!“ Swiatek was forced to withdraw her name from the Korea Open to get proper recovery time after the major tournament in NY. We heard complaints from Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic about how these “tight” schedules have impacted their performances at the US Open this year.

However, this isn’t the first time that Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz have complained about this issue. Previously we heard the Serb say, “The season is long. For me, it’s too long, in my opinion. I have been saying that quite some time – these days when I’m a bit older than I was 10 years ago.” The Spaniard claimed the season is “too demanding“.

Even American tennis legend, Andy Roddick spoke about this issue during a podcast. He said, that the Olympic hangover was real! “At some point in tennis… I don’t know who’s responsible for it. Maybe we all are and it’s just plausible deniability if we can get away with it. But, the schedule in tennis has to give. We keep adding and nothing gets taken away. Something has to give. It just drives me crazy,” said Roddick.

So, not only Alexander Zverev, there have been complaints about the scheduling from several parts of the tennis world, whether from the WTA or former players. What are your thoughts about this constant problem in the tennis world?