What a Real Off-Season Would Cost
The absence of a tennis off-season is not a scheduling oversight that a better administrator could fix. It is the predictable output of a sport with fragmented ownership, a ranking system that penalises rest by design, and an income structure that pays players per appearance rather than per season. Each element is defensible on its own terms, and together they produce a calendar nobody would choose. A real off-season would require the tours, the majors, the federations and the tournament owners to give up weeks they hold as assets, and a ranking model that does not treat a missed tournament as a loss. Until one of those changes, the season will keep closing on paper and continuing in practice.
