Former ATP No. 1 slams Iga Swiatek on social media over tennis schedule

Iga Swiatek has been WTA No. 1 for most of two years. Due to the versatility of her game and her domination on clay, she will likely stay atop the rankings for quite a long time barring injury. She might have lost to Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinals at the Cincinnati Open, but Swiatek still leads the rankings by around 3,000 points more than the Belarusian.

Swiatek does have issues with her sport, though. One of her greatest complaints is the schedule itself. Players face an 11-month glut of back-to-back tournaments. If one wants to keep their ranking high, they are forced to play a lot of events. This can be hard on one's body and lead to injuries. This, of course, could lead to players missing a long time and hurting the potential long-term success of their careers.

The argument to a player complaining about there being so many tournaments is that no one is forcing the player to participate in any of them. There are negative effects if they don't. Their ranking is compromised and they make less money because they aren't winning tournaments. There is a Catch-22 to the situation.

Yevgeny Kafelnikov calls out Iga Swiatek for the Pole's thoughts on the tennis schedule

Speaking to Sky Sports during her run in Cincinnati, Swiatek said about the tennis schedule, "What can I say? I’ve been kind of an advocate in saying that we shouldn’t, I don’t know...be pushing and pushing for us to play more. Obviously, it is not our decision, but for sure I think we have too many tournaments in the season. It’s not going to end well. It makes tennis less fun for us."

Again, Swiatek has a right to complain about the schedule as she has a drive to stay No. 1. She also doesn't have to play any tournaments if she doesn't care about ranking or money.

This is where former ATP No. 1 Yevgeny Kafelnikov comes in. He took offense to Swiatek's scheduling comments. That is his right, though maybe he is more upset that while he did make a lot of money during his career, the money is much more now.

In a response to Swiatek's words, Kafelnikov wrote on X/Twitter, "is someone pushing you to play ??? All you fricking do is complain!! I’ll tell you what you deserve! You deserve to get paid a lot less than you do now!! How about that??" He followed that with a peace sign and wink emoji (which seemed weird).

Kafelnikov's thoughts on Swiatek deserving to make less money is odd, however. If she keeps playing and winning, she has a right to earn what she makes. Maybe Kafelnikov needs to flesh out his thoughts a bit better next time.

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