Carlos Alcaraz makes Six Kings Slam point as world No 1 hits back at critics

Carlos Alcaraz has defended tennis players who participate in exhibition tournaments amid complaints over the calendar. Several stars in the game have voiced concern over the length of the tennis season.

The ATP and WTA tours have tournaments across 11 months of the year alongside the ITF's four grand slam tournaments - the Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open. Criticism of the tennis schedule has intensified amid the decision to lengthen many of the nine Masters 1000 events to two weeks. Before that - these tournaments were seven days long with the only exceptions being Indian Wells and Miami.

And now Alcaraz has had his say on the decision of many players to take part in exhibition events - despite widespread criticism of how long the tennis season is.

The world no 1 is one of several players to be taking part in the Six Kings Slam this week, alongside Jannik Sinner, Novak Djokovic, Alexander Zverev, Taylor Fritz, and Stefanos Tsitsipas.

"I think it's a discussion that a lot of players and a lot of people are talking about with the calendar, how tight it is with a lot of tournaments and the tournaments of two weeks, and then making some, I'm going to say, excuses with exhibitions, how players are complaining about the calendar and then playing some exhibitions," he told PA news agency.

"All I can say is it's 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.

"That's why, because we're just having fun for one or two days and playing some tennis, and I think that's great, and I think that's why we choose sometimes the exhibitions.

"Obviously I understand (the criticism), but sometimes the people don't understand us, our opinions. When I see a lot of people complaining about how we are defending the exhibitions, I don't understand them because, as I said, it's not really demanding mentally (compared to) when we're having such long events like two weeks or two-and-a-half weeks. It's really tough."

The 22-year-old has also admitted to heading to Saudi Arabia despite revealing the injury he suffered in Tokyo last month not being fully healed.

He added: "Everything's OK. I've been recovering the ankle as much and as good as I can.

"I don't feel, I would say, 100 per cent, the doubts are there thinking about it a little bit when I'm moving on court, but I think it improved a lot and I'm going to compete and perform well here in the Six Kings Slam."