After his stunning loss at the French Open, a clearly exhausted Rafael Nadal went home to Mallorca and rested his wounded psyche and tendonitis-prone knees in preparation for Wimbledon, which starts on Monday.

He admitted that his physical condition has been somewhat weakened by all the hard court events that take place throughout the year, with his knees the unintended victims of his wildly physical playing style when taking a pounding on hard surfaces. And now, they have forced him to withdraw from playing at the All England club.

This comes after he had also expressed displeasure in the little time given to prepare for Wimbledon after such a long and grueling clay court season. And he makes a valid point - it's downright ridiculous that there is no true grass court season. Tennis would be wise to address and rectify this situation rapidly.

As the most storied and tradition-rich tennis tournament is now upon us, much talk will be made of how few players master the grass court game, resulting in the thinning of the ranks of the already too-few challengers to Roger Federer and Nadal.

Who can blame those that don't perform well on grass, when there is no true grass court season? How can we expect any player to develop a grass court game when there are hardly any tournaments played on the lawns?

There is always constant and tiresome discussion in the sport of how so many players can only perform well on one surface, be it clay, grass or hard courts. This point is always made regarding the Americans in Paris: aside from their golden era of the 1990's, Americans have always struggled on the red clay. And the same is true on grass for many players as they are not equipped with the subtle footwork and movement that are needed to perform at the highest levels on the green stuff (even though racquet technology has rendered the traditional grass court game of serve-and-volley tactics nearly obsolete, aggressive play is still rewarded on grass).

Instead of bemoaning how few grass court technicians reside in the upper echelon of men's and women's tennis, perhaps it is time to do something about it. The most logical step would be to alter the schedule and have a real grass court season between the French Open and Wimbledon. As it stands now there is really only one week of tune-up events before the Big W.

The powers that be in tennis are doing themselves a disservice by not organizing such a true grass court season. After all, the French Open has Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Rome, Hamburg and Madrid as warm-up events; the US Open has a nearly two month long stretch of hard court tournaments in the United States and Canada before Flushing Meadows.

Both the French Open and Wimbledon need to compromise their schedules in order to accommodate an extended grass court season. Smaller tournaments are like little fiefdoms that don't like to be pushed around by larger nations but the powers that be in tennis may have to eliminate a clay court event in order to establish more grass court tennis.

If the French Open started a week earlier and Wimbledon commenced in mid to late July, then tennis fans would be treated to a grass court build-up to the most important tournament. This can only occur if the often obstinate and stubborn officials at the All England Club budge just a little bit and do the unthinkable and change their schedule. Wimbledon must see that a change in the start time of their tournament would only benefit the great event. Perhaps this would have to include discussions with the executives who run the British Open golf championship, as these two gigantic events can't overlap. This may not be an easy problem to solve logistically, but it is not impossible, and must be done.

Think of how more significant the Hall of Fame tournament in Newport, Rhode Island would become. It would be known as the American Wimbledon warm-up event and would generate significant interest and a better field of players. As is stands now, it's nonsensical that it takes place after the grass court major. It's like having a clay court event in the United States a week before the US Open.

This is an issue that has been dangling and in need of addressing for some time now. It is also linked directly to the mourning of the death of the serve and volley game. These are intertwined problems - with more grass court tennis, there'd likely be a jump in the numbers who are proficient with serve and volley tennis.

What is perhaps most offensive and egregious is the affront to tradition - tennis was created and designed to be played on grass. Just as baseball has thankfully shifted ways in the last two decades as nearly every stadium now has a grass playing field, tennis needs to join the expanding environmental movement and go green.