Alex de Minaur slams 'ridiculous' rules as angry French Open stars demand change

has become the latest top player to apply pressure on tennis bosses after Casper Ruud and Jordan Thompson both called out the lengthy schedule. The Aussie world No. 9 at the French Open, blowing a two-set lead over Alexander Bublik, and he put the loss down to fatigue.

After going out, 2-6 2-6 6-4 6-3 6-2, De Minaur followed his rivals' lead as he slammed the demanding nature of the tennis tour, suggesting it was "ridiculous" that players were penalised for missing some tournaments. He believes players could be forced to retire young unless something changes.

"Look, I'm just tired. I'm tired mentally. I'm a little bit burnt out, if anything. A lot of tennis being played," the ninth seed said after losing to dangerous Kazakh Bublik.

De Minaur isn't the only player struggling. On Wednesday, after suffering a shock early exit of his own, two-time finalist Ruud suggested players were being to avoid ranking point and financial penalties from the ATP.

Asked about Ruud's comments, the Australian agreed that something needed to be done about the scheduling, with an increasing number of mandatory tournaments extending their schedules to run over two weeks.

De Minaur added: "I mean, no one's got a solution. But the solution is simple: you shorten the schedule, right?

"What's not normal is that for the last three, four years I've had two days off after Davis Cup, and I've gone straight into pre-season, straight into the new season again.

"Yeah, sure, I mean, I could have maybe taken a week or a week and a half. Then that means my pre-season is two weeks long and I'm already starting in Australia, which is my home ground where I want to be doing well.

"Once you start, you don't finish until November 24th, right? So it's just never-ending. That's the sheer fact of it. The way it's structured, as Casper put it out there, I had to deal with that."

De Minaur knows all about the repercussions of skipping tournaments - he was penalised for missing multiple events while injured last year.

"I'm still dealing with that right now, right? My ranking right now consists of two zeros because I was injured and I couldn't play Cincinnati, Montreal - well, three - and Shanghai, which is ridiculous if you ask me, right? That's just the rules of the tour and where we are right now," he continued.

"The solution is you shorten it, because what's going to happen is players' careers are going to get shorter and shorter because they're just going to burn out mentally. There's just too much tennis.

"Look, there's no excuse, again, for today, myself, what happened today. I need to look at myself in the mirror and find out the reasonings, because ultimately this isn't going to change. It doesn't look like it's going to change. I have to adapt and make sure it doesn't happen again."

De Minaur and Ruud aren't the only ones who feel this way. Fellow Aussie and doubles Grand Slam champion Thompson

He explained: "Unfortunately, with the ATP schedule and how s*** it is, we can't afford to take breaks.

"Other players have an opportunity to pass you in the rankings and with prize money. You just feel like you're missing out."