{"id":33963,"date":"2025-04-19T21:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T21:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/33963\/"},"modified":"2025-04-19T21:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T21:53:08","slug":"carlos-alcaraz-tells-organisers-what-is-better-for-tennis-in-ongoing-debate-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/33963\/","title":{"rendered":"Carlos Alcaraz tells organisers what is ‘better for tennis’ in ongoing debate | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> has weighed in on the debate over the new two-week Masters 1000 events. Over the last few years, some of the top ATP and WTA events have extended their schedules to span over 13 days, rather than a week, with 96 players in the draw.<\/p>\n

The lengthy format means most players get days off in between their matches, as they would at a Grand Slam, while they must compete almost daily at a one-week Masters tournament. But Alcaraz believes the original offering is \u201cbetter for tennis\u201d.<\/p>\n

Only two of the nine Masters 1000s on the ATP Tour still run over one week – Monte Carlo and Paris. And Alcaraz proved that he could thrive in the shorter timetable, being crowned the Monte-Carlo Masters champion on Sunday<\/a> after winning five matches in five days.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old has gone straight back into competition in Barcelona, playing his first-round match at the ATP 500 event just two days after winning in Monaco. And he\u2019s now had his say on which schedule he prefers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI prefer the one-week Masters 1000s. It’s much better for tennis,\u201d he claimed after reaching the Barcelona Open quarter-final.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the first or second round, we see very high-level matches. For people, from the first round, they can enjoy the tournament and live it with enthusiasm, so to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

The four-time Grand Slam champion also disagrees with claims that players get more time off at a two-week Masters tournament.<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cFor us, the fact that it’s a week-long event means fewer days away from home, fewer days of high mental demand. They tell us we have rest days between matches, but in the end you don’t rest, because you have to go train, prepare mentally\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you’re in a tournament, you don’t rest mentally, and that’s the difficult part, being at your best and at 100 per cent for two weeks. I much prefer the one-week Masters 1000s, even though they’re more demanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alcaraz isn\u2019t the only player who feels this way. After the one-week Paris Masters at the end of 2024, Stefanos Tsitsipas<\/a> took to social media to slam the newer format.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe two-week Masters 1000s have turned into a drag. The quality has definitely dropped,\u201d he tweeted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the goal was to ease the calendar, extending every 1000 to two weeks is a backwards move. Sometimes, it feels like they\u2019re fixing what wasn\u2019t broken.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, WTA No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka <\/a>disagrees, and she prefers having time off in between matches.<\/p>\n

\u201cMe, personally, I prefer to have a day off. It’s kind of like long, it takes long for a two weeks’ tournament, but at the same time I prefer to play the match than have a day off, so for me physically it’s better,\u201d she said last year.<\/p>\n

And five-time Major winner Iga Swiatek<\/a> is torn. During the 2024 Madrid Open, she explained: \u201cIt really helps when you have a day off to be ready physically for the next match, so I would say physically it’s kind of easier to recover during the tournaments.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut mentally you need to be ready for these long tournaments without having really days off, because even when we have a day off, we usually come here and practice and we see courts, we see these faces, you know, eat the same food. So it’s not like you can totally switch off.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlos Alcaraz has weighed in on the debate over the new two-week Masters 1000 events. Over the last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[6359,79,1068,5838,11910,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-33963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-carlos-alcaraz","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-tennis","11":"tag-tennis-news","12":"tag-tennis-schedule","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114366854237973442","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}