There was a smile on Carlos Alcaraz‘s face when he waved to the crowd after being beaten by Ben Shelton at the US Open this year. There was no frustration in having lost a close match after 3 a.m. in the morning to the Spaniard, just the satisfaction of coming back to the sport after four and a half months and playing such a great match despite physical struggles. Titles are important for the seven-time Major champion, but not more so than playing with a smile on his face, something which he recently alluded to in a recent interview.

“Every time I go to a tournament, I wanna enjoy. I don’t wanna feel like I gotta go there and play there because I have to. It’s because I want to, and that’s a really important feeling for me. So, sometimes I think everything has to be missed, and I wanna miss tennis sometimes,” said Alcaraz during a SkySports interview at the Laver Cup. “And I think the battle right now and the fight should be something else. As I said, I’ve been fighting with the calendar too, you know, with the tournaments and everything, it shouldn’t be as tight as it is right now. We’ve seen a lot of players right now getting injured, missing some tournaments, missing some swings, and we gotta protect that if we’re gonna see the players you know, for ten years now, we gotta start now to fight a little bit more with more time for ourselves, and I need, and I would say that’s the fight for now.”

Alcaraz knows what it feels like to be sidelined with injury, as the Spaniard was out of action from April till the US Open due to a wrist injury. The former World No.1 took a cautious approach and skipped a host of tournaments, including Grand Slam events like the French Open and Wimbledon.

Alcaraz has played thirty singles matches this year as of now, with a lot of his season curtailed due to injury. However, if someone were to look at his season last year, they would understand how hectic the schedule has been. While it was the best season on Tour for the Spaniard as he won eight titles, he had to play eighty matches across sixteen tournaments. The longest rest that the current World No.3 had between tournaments was between Wimbledon and the Cincinnati Open, but that included him skipping the mandatory Masters 1000 event in Canada.

Skipping a mandatory event was one of two ways Alcaraz could get a rest last season, the other being an early loss at an event. However, given his form, Alcaraz reached 11 finals last year, which only made it even more challenging for the Spaniard to keep playing, as the calendar has an event every week. Even though it carried a penalty, the Canadian Open was not the only mandatory event that Alcaraz skipped last year, as the Spaniard also missed the Masters 1000 events in Madrid and Shanghai.

Alcaraz has drawn attention to the injuries other players have been dealing with recently. World No.1 and his closest rival, Jannik Sinner, have been out of action for more than two months, as the Italian is recovering from a knee injury, which saw him miss the Masters 1000 events and even skip the US Open. Even someone like Jack Draper decided to shut down his season early, as the British player found it difficult to accommodate the physical and tactical changes he needed to bring amid the rigorous schedule.

Alcaraz has not been the only player to voice his opinions about the calendar, with the likes of Alexander Zverev and Daniil Medvedev also expressing concern. The German player spoke about the Tour’s decision to elongate Masters events into 12-day affairs, which further reduced players’ recovery time. In contrast, Medvedev has also spoken about the slow nature of tennis balls and court speeds, which increase the sport’s physical demands, making the hectic schedule an even more untenable option.

Alcaraz has been consistent in his views, as this is not the first time the Spaniard has spoken out against the current calendar.

Carlos Alcaraz Has Been Critical of the Tennis Calendar in Recent Times

Playing with joy on the court is one of Alcaraz’s main weapons, and the Spaniard said he is willing to reduce his workload in the coming months and seasons. At the US Open, the Spaniard stated his intentions clearly, and he maintained his stance at the Laver Cup as well, while stating that the tournament helped him relax with it being a team event, where he could play with some of the other players on the Tour.

At the same time, Alcaraz also had something to say about his late finish in New York. While finishing at 3:33 a.m. might have made for some eye-catching headlines, the Spaniard made it clear that such a late finish hindered the players’ recovery and hampered their chances of performing well in the next round.

Having said all that, Alcaraz made a winning start to his Laver Cup campaign on Friday (September 25). The Spaniard partnered up with Jakub Mensik for Team Europe and beat the team of Alexander Bublik and Taylor Fritz to give their team a 3-1 lead in the tie at the end of Day 1.