This tennis season, like every tennis season, is dragging on for far too long.

So here we are entering the last week of October.

The US Open was finished six weeks ago, the season ending ATP Tour event is still a month away and the Davis Cup final takes place a fortnight later.

Welcome to tennis, the sport of which there is no off-season.

Unlike golf, which got its act together and mandated a schedule in which the meaningful tournaments take place over nine months, the tennis season drags on and on. The Davis Cup final finishes on 6 December, about four weeks before the Hopman Cup and the Brisbane International start the new season.

The problem for tennis is that the longstanding tournaments continue to be played, while new markets need to catered for. February, once a quiet month in the wake of the Australian Open, now has a vibrant South American swing and the growing number of Argentinian, Brazilian and Chilean players all want to take part.

Understandably wanting to cash in on China, tennis has now scheduled big tournaments towards the end of the year in both Beijing and Shanghai, but perhaps as a sign of the growing tennis fatigue, many players opted to miss the recent Shanghai event, even though it held Masters' status. Little wonder that Nikolay Davydenko was the champion.

Decent off-seasons are important in any sport. It is not just the players who need the break, but the surrounding industry - coaches, trainers, umpires and support staff as well as fans - who also need significant down time.

But four weeks at the end of the year doesn't cut it, because within a few days, the players need to start training again in preparation for the Australian summer - a gruelling campaign for those coming out of the European and North American winter.

If BackPageLead was running tennis, the sport would follow the lead of golf and finish all its significant events, including the ATP and WTA finals and the conclusions to the Davis and Fed cups by the end of October, leaving two clear months for the players to rest and recuperate. If, like the golfers, they want to continue lining their pockets for the rest of the year by playing exhibitions and non-sanctioned events, that's fine with us.

But the results won't count, so we won't have to pretend it matters.