Roger Federer enters the 2017 Us Open as the odds-on favorite to be holding the trophy at the end of the fortnight. Part of accomplishing that will no doubt mean staying healthy. He spoke about his recent back injury that he picked up at the Rogers Cup in an interview on Saturday, an injury that seemed to be minor all along.

He claimed that he was now "happy" about how he was feeling and suggested that the problem had been dealt with. But later in the same interview, Federer spoke about the players that aren't exactly "happy" about their physical conditions.

He claimed that a lot of it just has to do with age and not so much that the ATP has too many events in a calendar year.

Age-related injuries to Djokovic, Wawrinka?

"I mean, look," Federer said in regard to shortening the season to prevent injury, "...you can cut down the season by half, and then, if then there is an injury, we cut it in half again, and at the end we play two months of the year eventually at some stage, and we'll still be injured because now we're not playing enough. I believe it's just that the guys who are hurt lately, it's mostly because they are 30-plus. Wear and tear just takes its toll."

The top injured players that are over 30 are Novak Djokovic, Stan Wawrinka, and now Andy Murray, who pulled out of the US Open with his hip injury on Saturday.

There are a couple of notable absentees among the under-30 crowd as well, namely Kei Nishikori and Milos Raonic. Raonic and Nishikori are two players that often get injured on tour.

Injuries to the younger players

"Maybe some players have just had enough of playing hurt and told just themselves, When I come back I just want to be 100%.

Not always playing be at 85, 90, 95%. It's just not fun this way. Now, Nishikori and Raonic have had some injuries as of late. It's always been a bit of come-and-go with them. So I guess they just really want to figure it out now, and they also both have been hurt, so I hope they will be back strong again," Federer stated.

The topic of scheduling has been common enough among ATP tennis topics recently.

There is an idea out there that players simply have compact schedules to stay fit. However, one thing that should be pointed out is that tennis players have more flexibility in making their schedules than athletes in a lot of other sports. Furthermore, when a player loses a tennis match his week of play effectively ends. That's not like other sports where you play out your regular season win or lose. Additionally, while the season is about 11.5 months long, it's very common for players to have a month without playing a competitive match at some points in their seasons.

Federer doesn't see a scheduling issue

Federer stated: "For the most part I think it's the age more than anything [that's causing the injuries].

I don't think there needs to be that much addressing because the players have the option not to play as much as sometimes they have to or want to. I don't think the tour is doing much wrong, to be quite honest."

The US Open will conclude the Grand Slam season. However, there's still plenty of tennis to follow in October and November with the tour finals from London marking the end of the tennis year and starting the short off-season.
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