Tennis great and world number one Carlos Alcaraz has spoken in defense of his participation in exhibition events, he mentioned that he has been misunderstood by fans and critics, especially with the packed and physically exhausting tennis calendar.
“A lot of players are talking about the calendar, how tight it is with a lot of tournaments, tournaments of two weeks, and then making excuses with exhibitions. It’s a different format, different situation playing exhibitions than the official tournaments, 15, 16 days in a row, having such a high focus and demanding physically. We’re just having fun for one or two days and playing some tennis, and that’s great, and why we choose the exhibitions. I understand [the criticism], but sometimes people don’t understand us, our opinions. It’s not really demanding mentally [compared with] when we’re having such long events like two weeks or two and a half weeks.”
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Alcaraz is currently competing in Saudi Arabia in the 2025 edition of Six Kings Slam, a high-profile exhibition tournament which was launched in 2024. The event is from October 15 to 18 this brings in six of the world’s top players – Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic, Jannik Sinner, Alexander Zverev, Taylor Fritz, and Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Alcaraz recently withdrew from Shanghai Masters due to an ankle injury sustained in Tokyo. He has now opted to play in Saudi Arabia where he acknowledged that he hasn’t fully recovered yet, the physical toll of exhibition matches is considerably lower than that of ATP tour events.
“Everything’s OK,” he said. “I’ve been recovering the ankle as much as I can. I don’t feel 100% – the doubts are there when I’m moving on court, but it improved a lot and I’m going to compete and perform well in the Six Kings Slam.”
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The Spaniard will now play against Taylor Fritz after defeating Zverev in straight sets. On the other side Jannik Sinner defeated Tsitsipas and will be playing against Novak Djokovic in the semi-final. All the matches are streamed live on Netflix.
