Carlos Alcaraz has responded to those who have criticised players for playing exhibitions while also voicing complaints about the tennis schedule.<\/p>\n
The world No 1 has expressed concerns about the demands of the tennis season several times, arguing that the calendar does not allow players to have enough rest.<\/p>\n
The six-time Grand Slam champion is also one of many stars who has criticised the expanded 12-day Masters 1000 format<\/a>.<\/p>\n Iga Swiatek<\/a> recently labelled the schedule \u201ccrazy\u201d and \u201coverwhelming\u201d and argued that there are too many mandatory tournaments<\/a>.<\/p>\n During the Japan Open last month, Alcaraz<\/a> backed Swiatek when asked about the Pole\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n \u201cI agree with Iga,\u201d Alcaraz said. \u201cI think that the schedule is really tight. They have to do something with the schedule. I think there are too many mandatory tournaments, too many in a row.\u201d<\/p>\n Alcaraz\u2019s stance has sparked accusations of hypocrisy<\/a>, with some in the tennis world pointing out that the 22-year-old frequently appears at exhibition events.<\/p>\n One such exhibition is the highly-lucrative Six Kings Slam in Saudi Arabia, where Alcaraz is competing with Jannik Sinner, Novak Djokovic, Alexander Zverev, Taylor Fritz and Stefanos Tsitsipas for a $6million total prize pot.<\/p>\n Six Kings Slam injury list as Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Novak Djokovic struggle<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Jannik Sinner\u2019s coach makes telling Holger Rune comment as he names biggest threats to the Italian<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Speaking ahead of the Six Kings Slam, Alcaraz asserted that the criticism he has faced does not make sense as exhibitions are less demanding than official tour events.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a discussion that a lot of players and a lot of people are talking about with the calendar,\u201d the Spaniard told the PA news agency.<\/p>\n \u201cHow tight it is with a lot of tournaments and the tournaments of two weeks, and then making some, I\u2019m going to say, excuses with exhibitions, how players are complaining about the calendar and then playing some exhibitions.<\/p>\n \u201cAll I can say is it\u2019s a really different format, different situation playing exhibitions than the official tournaments, having 15, 16 days in row, having such a high focus and demanding physically.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why, because we\u2019re just having fun for one or two days and playing some tennis, and I think that\u2019s great, and I think that\u2019s why we choose sometimes the exhibitions.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously I understand [the criticism], but sometimes the people don\u2019t understand us, our opinions.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I see a lot of people complaining about how we are defending the exhibitions, I don\u2019t understand them because, as I said, it\u2019s not really demanding mentally [compared to] when we\u2019re having such long events like two weeks or two-and-a-half weeks. It\u2019s really tough.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Paris Masters chief addresses if Alcaraz, Sinner & Djokovic will play the event amid doubts<\/a> The post Carlos Alcaraz asserts exhibition critics \u2018don\u2019t understand\u2019 ahead of Six Kings Slam<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Carlos Alcaraz has responded to those who have criticised players for playing exhibitions while also voicing complaints about the tennis schedule. The world No 1 has expressed concerns about the demands of the tennis season several times, arguing that the calendar does not allow players to have enough rest. The six-time Grand Slam champion is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis News<\/h2>\n
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