Ugo Humbert ripped two-week Masters tournaments as “the biggest bull—-” in tennis and also disagreed with Jannik Sinner’s claim that players can simply choose where to play in a very demanding calendar.
This season, the events in Madrid, Rome and Shanghai joined Indian Wells and Miami in becoming two-week events. Next year, the Masters tournaments in Canada and Cincinnati will also join the party.
However, not everyone is happy with this format as some big names across the ATP and WTA Tours criticized the format and deemed the change as unnecessary.
For years, players have been complaining about the calendar in tennis. This only made matters worse.
“They never go in the players’ direction. I’m sorry, but I think that, already, the biggest bulls— is to have put the Masters 1000 over two weeks. It’s tiring. “And they tell us that we earn more money but it’s not true, we have twice as many expenses. There are a lot more guys who get injured too. Even to follow on TV, I think it’s not even worth it, you don’t understand who’s playing when etc. All that, it’s just a question of money, but that’s not all there is to it,” Humbert told Tennis Majors.
Ugo Humbert© Ugo Humbert/Instagram – Fair Use
Humbert shuts down Sinner’s argument
In the same interview, the 16th-ranked Frenchman described the Masters change as “complete nonsense” and added that the season is “too long.” Also, he claimed he can’t even get to spend Christmas at home.
Then, he addressed world No. 1 Sinner’s statement.
“I hear some, like Jannik Sinner, who say that you can choose not to play. When you are 50th, 60th in the world, you try to play as much as possible to move up the rankings. We need to review the thing, try to condense more, because, in the current state, it is tiring. After a while, it is not possible,” Humbert said.