The tennis schedule has been one of the hottest topics in tennis in recent years, especially with most Masters 1000 events moving from seven days to 12. Top players, including Carlos Alcaraz and Jack Draper, have been among those voicing concerns about the gruelling calendar. But Andy Murray believes that his old colleagues must be clearer about the changes they want to see, given that some of the world's best players are still accepting "lots of money" to compete in exhibition tournaments.

Last year, world No. 1 Alcaraz said "they are going to kill us in some way" when discussing the demanding nature of the tennis tour, while British star Draper has warned that the gruelling calendar could lead to burnout. Both stars, however, competed in a lucrative, two-day mixed doubles tournament ahead of this year's US Open - and Murray believes it's a sign that players can't agree on what the key issues are.

Murray himself served on the ATP player council during his time on the tour and was against extending the Masters events beyond their original seven-day format. While he believes there should be changes made to the professional tennis circuit, the three-time Major winner wants to see the current players go about things in a different way.

Appearing on the Tennis Podcast, the retired 38-year-old explained: "I think, for things to change, probably the players need to be very clear about what it is - what do you actually want? What are actually the problems and does everyone actually agree on them?

"Because sometimes you might hear players say, 'There's too many tournaments, we play too much'. Generally it's the top players that will say that. Players ranked 70 in the world maybe don't want less tournaments, they maybe want as many tournaments as possible to earn money and more ranking points or opportunities for ranking points and things."

Former No. 1 Murray knows that the world's best players have good reason to want to compete less frequently - but he's struggling to understand what they really want, with some stars still embracing lucrative, extra tournaments into the calendar.

"But then they also, they want to play exhibitions as well. It's like, 'Oh there's too many tournaments. Oh but the mixed doubles at the US Open, that's a new event, we all want to play in that, this is an amazing idea, we all want to play more tennis because we're getting paid lots of money to do it, we're getting appearance fees to play'," he continued.

"But then lots and lots of other tennis players, particularly doubles players, were hating that idea, but the top players loved it. So there's always - it's hard to get all of the players to always agree on things.

"'There's too many tournaments - but we're going to put a new Masters tournament in Saudi Arabia, there's going to be lots and lots of money - oh yeah, that's a great idea, we all want to play in that event, that's really good'. So it is hard to know exactly what all the tournaments want, what the Grand Slams want, what all the players want, and to come to some sort of agreement. It's very difficult."

With so many governing bodies and parties who have conflicting interests in tennis, the debate about the schedule doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon. Emma Raducanu recently suggested that it wasn't something worth "complaining about", while Iga Swiatek has admitted that she may start skipping some tournaments to give herself a break. For now, at least, players are enjoying the brief off-season before looking ahead to 2026.