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Roddick wants tennis players to form union
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-12 09:15
MELBOURNE, Australia - Andy Roddick looks at a tennis calendar that never
seems to end and the list of injuries that keeps growing. He suspects it's time
to take action. He wants players to form a union and send a message to those who
run the sport.
"It doesn't take a brain
surgeon to figure out why people are getting hurt," Roddick said Wednesday.
Consider the Australian Open, the season's first major, which begins Monday.
It is fast resembling an orthopedist's waiting room.
Defending champion Marat Safin and French Open winner Rafael Nadal withdrew
with lingering knee and ankle injuries. Four-time champion Andre Agassi is out
with an ailing ankle. Thomas Johansson, the 2002 winner, has assorted injuries.
Thomas Enqvist, a 1999 finalist, withdrew from the qualifying tournament because
of an aching back.
Top-ranked Roger Federer will be there but with his own medical concerns — an
ankle injury that limited his play at the end of last season.
Roddick spoke after a 6-2, 6-2 win over French teenager Gael Monfils in an
exhibition tournament at Kooyong. It was the American's first event since early
November when a back problem forced him to join Safin and Nadal as absentees
from the season-ending Masters Cup.
"It's a different game now with the physicality of it," he said. "The players
are bigger and stronger. ... It's just tougher on the body. I believe strongly
it's in the best interests of the game to try and come up with a way to give us
some sort of an offseason to recover."
Roddick understands that complaints about little time off between seasons
have been around for a while. He also conceded it was a "coincidence" that three
of the most prominent players were missing from one Grand Slam tournament.
"But I just think something needs to be done that's in the best interest of
players and their health," he said. "Someone is going to have to give.
"The tournament directors, the ITF, the Davis Cup, the Grand Slams — they're
all different entities and you'd think they would want to work together for the
greater good, but they each want their little slice of the pie and they're not
willing to give that up."
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