Rafael Nadal agrees with Andy Murray complaint and proposes radical tennis rule change
It’s been two years since Rafael Nadal retired, but the 22-time Major champion still has plenty of opinions on the sport he dedicated most of his life to. Since ending his career at the 2024 Davis Cup Finals, the Spanish superstar has given a raw insight into the injury problems that plagued his career through his Netflix docuseries Rafa, and his new coffee-table book with Assouline. Nadal has worked out that he missed 20 Grand Slam tournaments due to injuries and physical setbacks in his career, and he now has a radical proposal that could help others who have lengthy absences.
The former world No. 1 – who spent a total 209 at the top of the rankings – has reiterated his hopes of seeing tennis follow golf in using a two-year system to determine the rankings. Currently, on both the ATP and WTA Tours, players’ standings are calculated by the number of points they have accumulated over the last 52 weeks.
he 40-year-old told the Associated Press that a two-year system can “give the players a little bit more freedom to make better decisions and at the same time, when you get injured, you have more time to recover”.
Several young stars have faced long injury layoffs in recent years. Former world No. 4 Holger Rune spent 11 months sidelined when he ruptured his Achilles tendon and fell out of the top 1000. Britain’s Jack Draper has battled a bone bruising injury for the last 18 months and has already ended his 2026 season.
Even Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner succumbed to injuries this year. The Spaniard spent almost five months sidelined by a wrist issue, while Sinner has not played since July due to a knee problem, and has since shut down his season altogether.
It’s not the first time Nadal has proposed a two-year rankings cycle, as he floated the idea way back in 2017, when he and Federer both returned from injury absences of their own to share the four Major titles that season.
“It will be better to manage the schedule – to have a better schedule – to have a ranking for two years. Two-year ranking, not one-year ranking. That’s going to protect the players and help the players to have periods to find windows for rest,” he explained.
“Having a one-year ranking, it’s always that if you want to be in a good position in the ranking, you cannot rest much. If you are Federer, Novak or even myself and Andy [Murray], we are able to manage it that when we come back we have been winning lots of matches, then you can do it.”
And that’s not the only issue Nadal believes will help fix the demanding schedule. In recent years, seven of the nine Masters 1000 tournaments have become 12-day affairs. The Monte-Carlo Masters and Paris Masters are the only two that remain just one-week long.
The Spanish superstar played few tournaments from mid-2022 until his farewell in November 2024, so he didn’t compete in many of the extended Masters 1000 events. But he says the two-week format was a “mistake”.
Nadal isn’t the only player who feels that way. Three-time Major champion Murray has repeatedly voiced his own disdain for the extended Masters 1000s.
“I also don’t like the [12-day] Masters events. I think [the ATP] needs to change that back. The players don’t like it,” he recently told The Times. “I don’t think it works. I don’t think it’s a good thing for the product that all the players are complaining about the schedule
