Australian Open chief Craig Tiley concedes the international tennis season is too long but has dismissed suggestions the first grand slam of the year should be rescheduled.
There are consistently calls to move the Melbourne Park tournament to a different time of year to avoid Australia's fierce heat, condense the annual schedule and give players more time to prepare following the briefest of off-seasons.
Momentum for change is growing after several high-profile withdrawals, including men's No.1 Carlos Alcaraz, while women's top seed Iga Swiatek is among those to pull out of lead-in events due to niggling injuries.
Australian gun Alex de Minaur told reporters it was "no secret" the tennis calendar was a long one, but relished the January start.
Tiley slammed a NewsCorp report calling for the tournament's rescheduling but conceded tennis organisers needed to assess the season's length.
"I did read that, I thought it was absolutely ridiculous - a bizarre claim," Tiley said on Monday.
"You talk to every player, this is the season. It starts in January. It starts here in Australia.
"Alex has a good point about the length of the season. The sport does need to get together and look at the length of it.
"It finishes with Davis Cup late on the men's side and not as late on the women's side but I do think it's a long season. We've been talking about that for a long time.
"But Australia is the summer, Australia is January and this event is, from the players' perspective, one of their favourite places to play.
"They're coming here earlier, we're now seeing players here for six weeks, for seven weeks and the preparation for the Australian summer is very normalised - they know what they need to do."
If Melbourne Park organisers are unwilling to budge, it could put pressure on tennis authorities to push for the latter stages of the season to be wrapped up more quickly.
"It's no secret the year's a very long year," de Minaur said.
"You play tournaments throughout the whole year, you finish quite late. That depends on your schedule and everything.
"If there was a bit more time for an off-season, I'm sure a lot of players would like that. But at the same time we're kind of used to it.
"I've done it for a couple years where you finish quite late and then you get right into the midst of things.
"There's times along the year where you can choose to take a little bit of time off and that's probably the smartest thing to do. So I'll be looking at that."
Many competitors face a gruelling change in conditions, arriving from winter in Europe and the United States, but de Minaur said it was up to players to organise their pre-season and acclimatise to the heat.
De Minaur, based in Spain, is among those who arrive in Australia early while others head to the Middle East.
"I love starting my year here. There's nothing better than the Aussie summer," he said.
"It's nice and hot, us Aussies at least we thrive in the heat and we're ready to kick off our year with playing at home.
"So for us it's amazing. We love it."
Meanwhile, Tiley confirmed that for the first time since 2020 players would no longer be required to report positive COVID-19 tests but would be encouraged to stay away if ill.
