Carlos Alcaraz believes that fans “don’t understand” why tennis players play exhibition matches during the middle of the year.
The Spaniard, the world No1, is set to take part in the inaugural Six Kings Slam in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which began on Wednesday.
Many players struggled with the long matches, consecutive days’ play, and heat in the recent Asian hard-court swing, with Holger Rune asking a chair umpire if he wanted to see a tennis player “die” due to the conditions.
Emma Raducanu, who Alcaraz partnered in the restricted US Open mixed doubles, also suffered from heat exhaustion as she withdrew from the the Wuhan Open, before injuring herself at the Ningbo Open.
Alcaraz, however, believes that the shorter format of exhibition tournaments is more forgiving than the brutality of tour-level competition.
“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,” the 22-year-old said.
"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."
Alcaraz, the six-time Grand Slam champion, will begin his Six Kings campaign on Thursday.
The new event has taken six of the top men’s players and pitted them against each other in an exhibition tournament across four days.
Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Novak Djokovic, Alexander Zverev, Taylor Fritz, and Stefanos Tsitsipas are all involved in the Middle East.
Alcaraz was given a bye in the opening round, and he will play Fritz in the semi-finals after the American defeated Zverev 6-3 6-4 in his first match.
Jannik Sinner will take on Novak Djokovic in the last four after he beat Tsitsipas in straight sets.
A reported $4.5million (£3.4m) is up for grabs in prize money at the tournament, while the players themselves are thought to have been paid seven figures in appearance fees.
It is thought that the winner of the tournament could pocket $6m (£4.5m).
Alcaraz won his eighth title of the year in Tokyo last month, despite injuring his ankle badly mid-match against Sebastien Baez.
It forced him to withdraw from the Shanghai Masters, which Valentin Vacherot won against all the odds.
Alcaraz, meanwhile, admitted that he wasn’t fully fit going into the Six Kings exhibition.
"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 has improved a lot and I'm going to compete and perform well in the Six Kings Slam."
