Tennis schedule: Daria Kasatkina latest player to end season ‘at breaking point’
Daria Kasatkina has joined a growing crop of WTA Tour players ending their seasons early to either recover from, or avoid, burnout.Kasatkina, the world No. 19, confirmed she would not play again until 2026 in a statement posted on social media Monday. “I’ve hit a wall and I can’t continue. I need a break. A break from the monotonous daily grind of life on the tour, the suitcases, the results, the pressure, the same faces (sorry girls), everything that comes with this life.Advertisement“The schedule is too much, mentally and emotionally I am at breaking point and sadly, I am not alone,” she wrote, adding that she has been “far from fine for a long time” but had “kept a lid” on her feelings even as her results, she wrote, have revealed them.Kasatkina is 19-22 in 2025, her first season with more losses than wins since 2019. In March, she announced that she would become a permanent resident of Australia, switching allegiance from Russia. Kasatkina, who is gay and who criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, in April said that she did not have much choice about defecting if she wanted to be herself.“For me, being openly gay, if I want to be myself, I have to make this step, and I did it,” she said in a news conference at the Charleston Open.Kasatkina’s WTA Tour peers, Elina Svitolina and Paula Badosa, also ended their seasons early. In late September, Svitolina said she was not “in the right emotional space” to play, while Badosa, who has been dogged by injury all season, questioned how she was able to keep going through “the toughest, most painful moments”.AdvertisementWorld No. 2 and world No. 3 Iga Świątek and Coco Gauff have both criticized the WTA Tour schedule in recent weeks, focusing on the 10 WTA 1000 and six WTA 500 events which are mandatory. In news conferences at the China Open in Beijing, Świątek said that she would have to skip events to stay healthy, while Gauff described playing six 500s as “impossible.” In response to Świątek’s comments the WTA Tour said that “athlete welfare is always a top priority.”This article originally appeared in The Athletic.Tennis, Women's Tennis2025 The Athletic Media Company
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