Aryna Sabalenka Rips Tennis Schedule, Mandatory Events, 'It's A Lot For All of Us'

Aryna Sabalenka indicated she intends to play a slightly lighter schedule in 2026 due to the physical grind of an "insane" WTA season.

The No. 1 player in the world is through to the quarterfinals of the Brisbane International with the Australian Open later to come this month.

"The season is definitely insane, and that's not good for all of us, as you see so many players getting injured and also the balls are quite heavy," she said Thursday, per The Athletic's Charlie Eccleshare. "It's a lot of struggle for all of us."

Sabalenka elaborated on her frustration with the WTA's rules over mandatory participation in specified tournaments.

"This season we will try to manage it a little bit better, even though they are going to fine me by the end of the season," she said. "But it's tricky to do that. You cannot skip a 1000 event. It's really tricky, and I think that's insane what they do. I think they just follow their interests, but they're not focusing on protecting all of us."

Tennis is an unforgiving sport. There's a reason so many stars have quickly declined or walked away altogether in their mid-to-late 20s.

Sabalenka isn't the first women's star to call out what she believes is a bloated calendar.

Last June, Iga Świątek said the schedule is "too intense."

"There's no point for us to play over 20 tournaments in a year," she told reporters at the time. "Sometimes we need to sacrifice playing for your country because we need to keep up with playing these WTA 500s, for example, because we're going to get a zero in the ranking."

Going back to 2024, six-time men's Grand Slam champion Carlos Alcaraz argued that tennis organizers "are going to kill us in some way" because of how the year is structured.

There's little evidence the status quo is going to change anytime soon. Should the game's top stars begin to sit out major events with some regularity, the governing bodies might be forced to act.