Carlos Alcaraz has provided a worrying update on his fitness ahead of his first Six Kings Slam match today in Saudi Arabia.
Alcaraz was given a bye to the semi-finals of tennis’s biggest-money exhibition event in Riyadh – where each player receives a $1.5m appearance fee and the winner earns $4.5m – and will face Taylor Fritz from 5.30pm BST today, after the American beat Alexander Zverev 6-3, 6-4 in just 59 minutes in the quarter-final on Wednesday.
Six-time grand slam champion Alcaraz has been battling an ankle injury in recent weeks, after sustaining the issue during his opening match at last month’s Japan Open, although he managed the pain to still win the event in Tokyo – coincidentally beating Fritz in the final.
However, he promptly pulled out of the following week’s Shanghai Open in order to let his body recover and has now given a slightly concerning update on his fitness for the Six Kings Slam, where Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic are also competing.
“I’ve been recovering the ankle as much and as good as I can,” explained the 22-year-old Spaniard. “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.”
Alcaraz was quick to credit his physiotherapist Juanjo Moreno for enabling him to play through the ankle problem so successfully in Tokyo.
“I have said it before and I will say it again, I have the best physio in the world, who I trust 100 per cent,” insisted Alcaraz after his second-round victory at the event. “The work he has done for the ankle has been great. I could play normally, which is great.
Just nine days before their meeting in the Japan Open final, Fritz beat Alcaraz 6-3, 6-2 at the Laver Cup in San Francisco – the first time he has got the better of the Spaniard in their professional careers, with the record now standing at 4-1 in the younger man’s favour.
Alcaraz has been a vocal critic of the tennis schedule, especially the Asia swing where its demanding nature and sweltering conditions have seen a number of players struggling physically and forced to retire from matches.
The world No 1 has openly said he would consider skipping mandatory events to prioritise his health, which has led to understandable criticism of him now happily playing a big-money exhibition such as the Six Kings Slam. But he is adamant that critics are wide of the mark.
Alcaraz explained: “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.
“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.”
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