The Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA) has renewed its criticism of the tennis calendar, saying world number one Elena Rybakina withdrew from the season-ending WTA Finals because “her body had nothing left to give”.

The association issued its statement on Monday, two days after the defending champion pulled out of the tournament at Indian Wells on Saturday, the day before it began. Rybakina said she was not physically ready to compete, with organisers citing a viral illness as the reason for her withdrawal.

“She finishes 2026 with two Grand Slam titles and four titles overall. And still, by the season's final event in November, her body had nothing left to give,” the PTPA said in a post on social media.

“Players shouldn't reach the biggest event of the year running on empty. The PTPA continues to push for a season that leaves players healthy enough to finish it.”

A record season cut short

Rybakina, 27, ends 2026 with a 54-14 win-loss record and four titles: the Australian Open, Stuttgart, the US Open and Ningbo. Her two Grand Slam titles in a single season made her the standout player of the year, and she had already secured the year-end world number one ranking before the Finals began.

But the withdrawal was not entirely unexpected. She had pushed her pre-tournament news conference back by a day, and last month she pulled out of the Pan Pacific Open quarter-finals in Tokyo with a neck injury. The WTA Finals were the final event of a season that has run for almost eleven months.

The WTA Tour did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters. The tour has previously said athlete welfare is a top priority and that it has listened to players' views on the calendar.

Fritz echoes the concern on the men's tour

Similar concerns about workload have been raised on the men's ATP Tour. American Taylor Fritz, the top seed at this week's Stockholm Open, said on Sunday that the brief off-season gives players almost no chance to recover.

Speaking on The Running Interview Show, Fritz said the tour runs year-round and that players get a break of one month at most. The ATP has said players keep control over their own schedules and that it is working on incentives to encourage a suitable number of matches across the season.

The PTPA, founded in 2020 by Novak Djokovic and Vasek Pospisil, has made the length of the season central to its campaign against the sport's governing bodies. In March 2025 it filed an antitrust lawsuit against the ATP, WTA, International Tennis Federation and International Tennis Integrity Agency in New York, London and Brussels, citing the eleven-month calendar alongside pay and playing conditions.

What happens next

The WTA Finals continue at Indian Wells without the defending champion and world number one, a blow to the tournament and to a season finale meant to showcase the year's eight best players.

Rybakina's withdrawal also sharpens a debate that has followed tennis all year: whether a calendar that stretches from January to November, with mandatory events and ranking points at stake almost every week, can be sustained without the sport's biggest names breaking down before the season ends.

For now, the PTPA's message is blunt. A player can win two Grand Slam titles, four tournaments and 54 matches in a year, and still arrive at the final event with nothing left. The association says that is a failure of the schedule, not of the player.