Has tennis outgrown a long season on clay?

The annual clay-court segment known colloquially as the Road to Roland Garros seems to have changed from a colorful, winding road into a dangerous highway, choc-a-bloc with hazards and potholes. The tournaments that once offered opportunity for players to sharpen up their clay-court skills before Paris have become something else entirely—events that rival the major they precede and, for contenders, potential momentum killers.

As a result, recent events suggest that the Lords of Tennis may need to undertake a reevaluation of the clay-court swing, which for a long time seemed like the most stable, coherent and logical segment of tennis’ notoriously chaotic calendar.

“This is a microcosm of the bigger picture and it’s really concerning to me,” elite coach Craig Boynton, currently working with Hubert Hurkacz, told me. He sees the expansion of recent 1000-level events into two-week events as a potentially critical misstep. There are five between early March and mid-May: Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo (ATP-only), Madrid and Rome.

“With those events leading up to each other, the guys who are doing well are playing more, but the players who aren’t doing well are not playing enough. There are many factors involved, but this is one of those trade-offs [in the growth of the Masters]. When everything is special, nothing is special.”

Tennis historians may look back on the recently completed 1000 event in the capital of Spain and dub it “The Madrid Masters Massacre,” or perhaps the “Calamity on Clay.” Call it what you will, repercussions are inevitable.

All was relatively quiet in Madrid until top-seeded Jannik Sinner withdrew from the  quarterfinals with a hip injury. Not long thereafter, defending champion and No. 2 seed Carlos Alcaraz was upset in the quarterfinals by Andrey Rublev. A tender right forearm played a role in Alcaraz’s loss—and led him to announce his withdrawal from this week's Rome Masters.

Sinner followed suit a day later when, much to the chagrin of his Italian compatriots, he withdrew from Rome. Then, in another discouraging plot twist, No. 3 seed Daniil Medvedev had to abandon his own quarterfinal with Jiri Lehecka after a set due to pain in his right leg. And just 24 hours later, Lehecka quit with back pain after just six games in his semifinal with Felix Auger-Aliassime.

Rublev plowed on into the final, but by then the pain on one of his feet following his upset of Alcaraz was so excruciating that he was only able to play—and win—the championship with the aid of a powerful anesthetic that essentially turned the foot numb.

There are many factors involved, but this is one of those trade-offs [in the growth of the Masters]. When everything is special, nothing is special. Craig Boynton

This wasn’t really what the clay segment has been all about, or renowned for, over the decades. Sure, the calendar was nicely loaded with appealing prestige events, as well as some historic, colorful venues (Estoril, Barcelona). With Roland Garros looming, the events attracted terrific fields. But they were one-week tournaments, played exclusively in daylight and only recently impacted by evolutionary advances in everything from string technology to player stamina.

The world of red clay is different now.

“At first glance, I like the idea of longer big events. They’re better for the tournaments need to make money,” Tennis Channel analyst Paul Annacone, who has coached both Pete Sampras and Roger Federer, told me. “Initially, I thought it was better for the players, too, providing more opportunity, more days off, more rest. Now? I’m not so sure.”

The injury count suggests that however much rest the players are getting isn’t enough to compensate for the workload. Nor do they sing the praises of the expanded 1000-level events, even though in theory they lead to growth.

“I think like it was before with two-week tournaments at Indian Wells and Miami, it's fine,” Elena Rybakina told reporters in Madrid. “But to make these tournaments like Madrid and Rome also long, and then you have Roland Garros—it’s kind of big events.”

At the time she spoke, Rybakina was in the midst of a 14-1 run spanning two continents and two surfaces. But the toll on her was becoming obvious. After she fought off match points and survived an epic three-set quarterfinal with Yulia Putintseva, Rybakina added, “iI's nice when you are always hungry to win, when you really want to do best. But when you are already at the point where you are so tired that at 5-2, you're just, ‘Okay, if I'm going to lose, I'm going to have some vacation. . .'

"I think for players it's not the best. I think it would be nice to change something. Of course the public wants to see good tennis.”

The quality of the tennis certainly has been diluted by the extended 1000 events. Jimmy Arias, the Tennis Director at the IMG Academy and also a Tennis Channel analyst, sometimes misses the past in which the 1000s were one-week events.

“You had just one day off,” he told me. “But every match was amazing. It was even harder then than it is now to win back-to-back Masters. It was not easy to pull it off, to do well in both of them. It was more like success in one or the other.”

Arias in his heyday was that anomaly, an American who preferred clay. He’s still partial to it because it was the only segment of the year when everyone is playing on the red dirt.

That clay may be red everywhere in Europe during the clay swing, but it doesn’t play the same way at every tournament—not by a long shot. That’s an element that mirrors the recent outcry over the different balls a player may be using from week-to-week, and the impact the abrupt transitions can have.

The lack of uniformity, while charming in some ways, has also shaped the current injury predicament. Hitting fluffed up balls in early April in Monte Carlo (or a week later in Munich) before spectators huddled in puffer coats can be tough on the racquet arm. The subsequent shift to the brisk pace of the fast courts in Madrid under sunny skies can be challenging, before another adjustment in Rome.

“It would be good if all the clay at these tournaments played the way it does at Roland Garros,” Boynton said. “The way it is now, you can have conditions one week to the next that are polar opposite.”

The 1000s in the first half of the year have grown in stature, cumulatively rivaling the Grand Slam event they usher in. For spectators, getting to see a Hall of Fame-caliber player compete is no longer a prerequisite to buying a ticket (at least for the first week). There are alway players. Well, almost always.

When Lehecka retired after just six games in his semifinal with Auger-Aliassime, fans were left having witnessed just an hour and 45 minutes of singles tennis. The thin faire led Auger-Aliassime to bemoan the fact that, after the first round, there’s no Lucky Loser type of substitution rule. The way things are going, the suits in tennis may need to consider creating one.

Novak Djokovic, still ranked No. 1, hasn’t played since April 13 in Monte Carlo. It would be a pity if it turned out to be a brilliant strategic decision come Roland Garros.