As this year’s WTA Tour ends, I reflect, as a tennis professional, on how fortunate I am. I travel around the world and am paid well to do something I love. Very few people enjoy such rewards in their career. Yet right now, in nearly every major sport, there is a huge strain being placed on professional competitors. Player welfare is a hot topic in the locker room.

In tennis, we are talking about players reaching their limit — the physical, mental and emotional toll.

Since the end of lockdown, there has been huge demand from fans, broadcasters and sponsors for live sports and related content. Sports have been competing with one another to satisfy that demand. So far, so good.

Yet those demands have to be balanced against the welfare of the main actors in the drama — athletes. At times, it feels that we are little more than assets to be sweated for revenue growth. But we are human beings and there must be limits to the demands placed on us.

I’m not alone in thinking this. Noting a wave of end-of-season injuries among fellow professionals, Britain’s Jack Draper said last month: “We are pushing our bodies to do things that they aren’t supposed to in elite sport. … However, the tour and the calendar have to adapt if any of us are going to achieve some sort of longevity.” That was echoed by Taylor Fritz, who referred to “the weekly grind [becoming]........

© Sports Business Journal