Dubai: The UAE's top tennis player has called for a better-planned tennis season next year.
Omar Behroozian told Gulf News that this year the UAE had too many tournaments during a short period of time.
"I have not got a single week off from playing since I returned from Davis Cup in April," he said.
"For a major part of the season we did not have any activity and then suddenly we had one tournament after another till this week."
Behroozian spoke at the end-of-season UAE National Tennis Championships that concluded at the Aviation Club with Al Wasl clinching a record seventh crown.
"I think it is a bit too late in the year to be playing in such humid and hot conditions," Behroozian said.
"I don't see the point in starting so late and then jamming up events one after another.
"I think the authorities need to space out the tournaments through the season.
"I hope they will make the necessary changes and the players will have a better calendar next season."
Behroozian indicated he was all in favour of the new system adopted by Tennis Emirates with events from the overhauled UAE Nationals Tennis Championships played in a Davis Cup format, drawing ranking points.
"I did miss out the early stages of the competition, but I must say that I have enjoyed playing this year," Behroozian said.
"The earlier system never encouraged me to play as I never saw myself getting anything out of it. But this season has been different.
"It has been really hectic for me since I came back from Davis Cup. My priority right now is to take a holiday and get some rest."
Behroozian also called on the junior players to raise the level of their game so that the national squad would be strengthened for the future.
"Rashid [Bushaqar] is obviously our best junior player at the moment, but we need the rest of the juniors to step forward and raise the standard of their game so that they can be more effective with the national squad," Behroozian said.
"We need three or four more juniors coming through. In my time as a junior we had at least 50 players and only me and Mahmoud [Nader] stuck around.
"So you can imagine how difficult a task we have on our hands to get juniors coming through and staying in tennis. But we need to work in this direction."
Meanwhile, Behroozian will be part of the UAE squad leaving for three weeks in Madrid to prepare for the new season.
The team is scheduled to depart on July 1 with their next big assignment at the Arab Tennis Championships in September.
