By Peter Bodo

Matthew Stockman/Getty Images A familiar sight: Injuries and retirements during the fall indoor season.

The following day in Shanghai, Andy Roddick walked the walk, hobbling into his press interview on a left knee he had injured in his second-round match against Stanislas Wawrinka—a gear failure serious enough for Roddick to surrender the match. Put yourself in Roddick’s shoes: you travel all the way to Shanghai, near the end of an already grueling hopscotch around the globe, and wind up sitting in a hotel room with a bum knee after a second-round exit from a Masters event.

This scenario has become ritual in tennis, as much a part of the game as the heat in Australia, or the television-friendly scheduling at the U.S. Open. And much like those other issues, the endless tennis year doesn’t appear to be one that anybody is willing to do much about. And there’s very little anyone could do, even if he had the will.

Do you remember the battle royale that ensued when the ATP decided to move and demote the spring tournament in Hamburg? Some pundits still think the ATP was awfully lucky to emerge from that fracas intact and in full possession of its powers. Now imagine doing something like that with a dozen events, including two of the nine Masters 1000 tournaments. That’s right, nearly one-third of the most important non-Grand Slam events happen when the players, or at least the very best players, are sick and tired of playing tennis.

The main problem with downsizing, even if everyone agreed it ought to be done for the good of the game, is that it represents taking something away from people (the promoters of fall events, many of whom worked long and hard to create successful products, as well as the ATP rank-and-file players, who crave opportunity). And the cost of buying out all those events would be whatever comes after “astronomical.”

So it’s likely that tennis will limp through one fall season after another, and from one public relations disaster to another, without changing. There’s only one realistic way to address this problem in a way that might work for all of the stakeholders: Instead of eliminating events to create a longer off-season, the Lords of Tennis could look at presenting tennis in as many as four different segments, with a healthy break between each.

Tennis, after all, already operates in segments, the most clearly delineated of which are the spring clay-court season in Europe, the hard-court season in the U.S. (just think of Wimbledon as an all-star break that contains the most prized tournament of them all), and—ironically—the fall indoor circuit, which has been slightly diluted by the addition of the Asian swing.

But barring a radical reorganization, the 12-month tennis calendar year is a reality.

Peter Bodo is a senior editor at TENNIS magazine. Check out his blog, TennisWorld, and follow him on Twitter.