Carlos Alcaraz frequently highlighted the length of the tennis calendar recently, which caused him some criticism due to his affinity for playing exhibitions, which fellow player Taylor Fritz defended.
The tennis calendar is too long and could be much shorter than it is now. Most tennis players would agree with this, and Alcaraz has highlighted that a couple of times in recent months.
The Spaniard has simply elected to use his platform as one of the top players in tennis to raise concern over it. It’s been too long for some time, and it’s getting longer, which he thinks will negatively affect the players and, ultimately, the sport.
As valid as that position is, some have pointed out that organizing the calendar falls upon the players, which is also true. Alcaraz hasn’t done a perfect job in that this year.
He added a couple of exhibitions to his calendar, which only made it longer. He played the Netflix Slam against Rafael Nadal in March. He played at the Laver Cup recently, which again added a few matches to his calendar that didn’t need to be there.
He will also play an exhibition in Riyadh later this year, which is again an exhibition he didn’t have to play. Playing those events while complaining about the calendar length weakens his position, but it doesn’t make it untrue.
Two things can be true at the same time, which is the case here. Alcaraz can make it easier on himself by organizing his calendar better, but the calendar is still too long. He certainly dismissed the criticism about playing exhibitions.
Even so, the Spaniard caught some criticism for his stance, which isn’t a huge surprise. Whatever a tennis player does, somebody will find fault in it, but Taylor Fritz still chimed in on X about the situation.
The American shared a lengthy post on the matter in which he defended players such as Alcaraz for having the opinions they have.
"I agree that its tough for the tour to shorten the schedule when players will just play Exos to fill the time, and I’ve seen a lot of people criticizing some of the players asking for a shorter season because they go and play Exos."
"I don’t understand that part of the argument, because playing an exo vs a tour event aren’t comparable to each other in terms of burn out — physically and especially mentally."
"A tour event can be 5+ days of playing all out and mentally being dialed in on all things on and off court, VS an exo you show up, have some fun and entertain for a match or two."
According to the American player, there is a massive difference between playing a competitive match and playing in an exhibition, from which players carry over no mental fatigue.
"You don’t have to all out push your body and there is absolutely 0 mental fatigue or stress. In a lot of ways an exo is a lot like a rest week and shouldn’t be compared 1:1 with a tour event."
"I don’t expect non players to fully comprehend what I mean by this because it’s tough to judge the mental and physical fatigue that playing tour weeks entails if you not apart of it, but I would fully expect players to understand what I mean by this."