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Kyle Edmund believes players are paying the price for the increasingly demanding tennis schedule, saying there isn't enough time during the season to properly build fitness.
The former British tennis star knows better than most how devastating injuries can be. After reaching a career-high ranking of No. 14 and making the 2018 Australian Open semifinal, his career was derailed by persistent knee problems that required three surgeries between 2020 and 2022.
Edmund returned to competition in 2022 and spent more than three years trying to rebuild his career before ultimately retiring in 2025 at the age of 30 after concluding that his body could no longer handle the demands of the Tour.
Edmund says the packed schedule makes it difficult to build fitness
Speaking with Tennis365, Edmund suggested that the increasingly packed calendar leaves players with almost no opportunity to improve their physical condition once the season gets underway.
“There’s chat about the calendar, more days at the tournaments, the extended Masters events. [There’s] probably less downtime between the tournaments, so you don’t have time to do physical blocks to build your body up throughout the year. You’re very much maintaining," the 2018 Australian Open semifinalist said.
“So apart from the off-season, you’re just maintaining throughout the year, and to maintain and do training where you’re just, not trying to increase your fitness, but just cope with the demands for 11 months of the year, can be a challenge.”
Edmund also believes tennis balls could be part of the problem
Edmund also identified the tennis balls as another potential issue. While he stopped well short of blaming them for his own injury problems, he admitted he wondered whether they may have contributed to the wrist injury he suffered late in his career.
“There’s another thing: the balls. I don’t have stats with the balls, but the arm injuries, the wrist injuries... I had a wrist injury at the back end of my career. I never had any wrist injuries before... I don’t know what that was. I was obviously coming back from a knee injury, so it might’ve just been I wasn’t ready for the demands of playing match after match," the former British tennis player added.
Before injuries prematurely ended his career, Edmund won two ATP titles, reached his maiden Grand Slam semifinal at the 2018 Australian Open, and climbed to a career-high ranking of No. 14 in October 2018.
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