John Lloyd says the injury problem in men’s tennis is headed the wrong way, and he wants Grand Slams shortened to best of three sets. The former Grand Slam finalist and former British No 1 said the current load is pushing players toward breakdown, with 17 withdrawals already hitting the 2026 Queen’s Club Championships.
“It’s going to get worse,” Lloyd said at Queen’s Club. He added that an ideal-world fix would be to move the Australian Open to March, but the more realistic compromise would be to make the Grand Slams best of three sets. That is a direct challenge to the sport’s longest-format events, and it lands during a year already marked by repeated injury withdrawals.
Queen’s Club withdrawals mount
The Queen’s Club Championships were affected across both singles entry lists, with 17 withdrawals from the ATP and WTA 500 events. Lloyd’s warning came against that backdrop, and he tied the pattern to the way players are asked to prepare for the biggest events on the calendar.
He said the issue is not only the matches themselves. “And it’s not the physicality of the matches at the Slams, although that is extreme. In my opinion, it’s the preparation That’s where the body breaks down,” he said. Lloyd pointed to the end-of-year break, which he described as really only six weeks maximum, followed by a rapid ramp back into full competition mode.
Wimbledon withdrawals deepen
The Wimbledon Championships have already lost eight men and five women in 2026, including four current top 20 stars. Carlos Alcaraz is among the withdrawals, along with Victoria Mboko, Lorenzo Musetti and Valentin Vacherot. The numbers give Lloyd’s argument immediate weight: the disruption is not isolated to one tour or one player.
He said the schedule forces players from downtime into the kind of load that can include “possibly seven, four-hour matches.” From there, he described a cycle of recovery and preparation that runs through Indian Wells and Miami, then the French Open and Wimbledon, and later the US Open. “It’s insanity,” he said.
John Lloyd and the calendar
Lloyd’s own record gives context to why he is speaking from experience. He reached a career-high ranking of world No 23 and was runner-up at the 1977 Australian Open. On his view, today’s best-of-five Grand Slam format asks as much from modern players physically as it did in his era, even though the tours and schedules have changed around them.
He put it bluntly: “Best-of-five, the physicality of these guys now… best-of-five in my day is the same as best-of-three now, in terms of what they do with their bodies and the physicality.” His conclusion was even sharper. “They’re animals — and I mean that in the best way. But they are going to break down, and it will happen more and more.”
For now, the practical effect is limited to the withdrawals already on the board at Queen’s Club and Wimbledon. The broader question is whether the ATP, the WTA or the Grand Slams will move at all on Lloyd’s call to shorten major matches, because the calendar he described is still in place and the exits keep coming.
