We’re technically at the start of a new season, but “seasons” in tennis are something of a convenient fiction. The last one, after all, just ended a month ago. In reality, there are multiple seasons each year, but we typically call them swings. There’s the Australian swing in January, the Middle Eastern swing in February, the Sunshine Double in March, the clay swing from April to June, the grass swing in June and July, and on from there. They happen in different parts of the world, on different surfaces, with short breaks in between.
This calendar, which is essentially a marathon broken up into middle-distance runs, has a big effect on players’ performances. Other than the Big 3 and Serena in their primes, very few pros can maintain a consistently high level of play for more than a couple months. In 2024, Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek were the game’s four best players, and they won seven of the eight Slams. But all of them had ups and downs as they moved from continent to continent and surface to surface.
Maybe the trick is to take it one swing at a time, prepare for each one as if it’s a season of its own, and don’t look any farther down the road. It’s just the second week of 2025, but the 11-month grind has already begun. Tennis players, unlike the rest of us, don’t have the luxury of bailing on their New Year’s resolutions by Quitter’s Day.
