Andy Roddick's itinerary this year takes some beating - just like his body. From Austin, Texas, to Australia, back home via Vienna for a Davis Cup first-round tie, from the West Coast of America to the Midwest, on to Dubai, back to California, across to Florida, a stopover in North Carolina for another Davis Cup victory before last week's return to Europe. He does not want sympathy votes - after all, he does not travel in economy - but some understanding.

One of the more prominent marks on ATP tournament drawsheets in 2008 is “Ret'd”, short for retired. And there has been more than the occasional “wo” - walkover. All of which has happened when those in charge of promulgating next year's calendar are insisting on a stricter level of participation at the leading tournaments, at the risk of fines and suspensions for no-shows or lame excuses.

Roddick was forced to retire during the fourth game of his BNL D'Italia Masters semi-final on Saturday. He did not like doing it, but a tennis player with a shoulder in spasm is not much use and he has returned to Texas for treatment. Such is the physical manner of Roddick's game, it is remarkable that the longest time he has been out since turning professional in 2000 is three weeks - in 2006.

Five matches in Rome were either not completed or did not start at all, an extremely worrying scenario for tournament directors who want to put on a show, while for the welfare of the players, it is simply unsustainable.

Which is why Roddick is a voluble critic of the “eight for eight” rule to be introduced next year, when attendance is mandatory at each Masters Series (to be renamed“1000”) events. Should a player miss one for reasons deemed unacceptable, they will be banned from the next. “Don't we want our stars in the game for as long as we can - surely the fact that Andre [Agassi] was still playing at 35 was good for the game,” Roddick, 25, said.

“Nobody wants to miss tournaments, they lose points, they lose prize-money, the tournament suffers, the tour suffers, but when it comes to fitness, there are many grey areas. I had to make tough decisions in '07. I was banged up in the autumn and I had a big Davis Cup tie coming up. I played five of nine Masters

[Series events] last year and had I been able to play everything, who knows what my ranking could have been. Do you think I didn't want to play? Who gains from fines and suspensions? It makes absolutely no sense.”

Players are in a demonstrative mood. Rafael Nadal had led a chorus of criticism from clay-court specialists, who have long believed they are treated as second-class citizens; Roddick senses a greater unity of purpose. “We can argue the benefits of clay courts and hard courts until we're blue in the face,” he said, “but where we are unified is in looking at the bigger picture and whether the businessmen who have been brought in to make decisions know what they're doing.”

The future direction of men's tennis depends on whether the ATP was within its rights to demote the status of the Hamburg event in the 2009 calendar and move it to Madrid. There is one last shot at mediation in Boston this week. If that fails, tennis has a July date in court that no one wants and one that will have massive repercussions for the sport.