Tennis fans, brace yourselves for the Six Kings Slam. The epic promo is here, featuring the world’s top players, including Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Daniil Medvedev, and Holger Rune. The exhibition match will take place from October 16th to 19th in Riyadh. But not everyone is on board. Former player Andy Murray has shared his thoughts on the event.

The promotional video introduces Alcaraz (Sand man), Sinner (Renaissance artist), Rune (Viking warrior), Medvedev (King of Bears), Nadal (Clay warrior), and Djokovic (Leader of wolves) to compete in the exhibition match. It promises all the players a fee of approximately $1.6 million while the winner will take home $6.42 million. There were initial concerns about ATP rules and the length of the Six Kings Slam event. However, a strategic break between the matches(October 16th-17th-19th) has resolved the issue. Despite avoiding legal problems, some tennis players, like Andy Murray, are critical of exhibition matches.

While many suggested the promo is like the ones made for movies, Murray wrote, “Except it’s not a movie and you won’t watch it because it’s an exhibition tennis event that nobody cares about 👍,” under the promo video on X. Murray, who retired from tennis on August 1st after an Olympic men’s doubles QFs defeat, has never approved of players playing in the exhibition matches. 

Earlier this year, in an interview, he was asked about what he would change about the tennis season. To which he responded, “I think there should be a longer off-season as well.” Taking exhibitions matches as an example for off-season, the 37-year-old highlighted the difference between high and low ranked players. “I don’t know if I would want restrictions on exhibitions,

It’s the top players in the world that are able to play exhibitions, where they make lots of money, but the rest of the players they don’t have that opportunity and who should you feel more,” explained Murray. “It is the slightly lower-ranked players that obviously don’t get those opportunities. So for them, they want more tournaments, because it’s a chance for them to earn more money. So there has to be a bit of a balance to that.” 

Rightly so. Both Alcaraz and Djokovic have expressed concerns about the grueling schedule this year, especially after the Olympics. Alcaraz cited exhaustion in New York due to the “tight schedule”, while Djokovic admitted running “out of gas”. Murray also criticized the US Open’s scheduling and echoed concerns about players participating in exhibition matches. He shared his own experience with such matches in an interview.

Andy Murray’s honest take on playing exhibition matches

For Andy Murray, the start of his last season on the ATP tour was far from easy, as he experienced three consecutive first round losses starting from the Australian Open. However, ahead of his Qatar Open tournament this year, he showed his optimism and vowed to learn from his defeats. Although he eventually qualified for the second round in Qatar, Jakub Mensik defeated him. 

Nevertheless, ahead of his tournament, while talking about his performance, the former World No. 1 added, “I was never a great practice player, I didn’t use to win practice matches, exhibition matches, it’s been the complete opposite for me recently.” Interestingly, at the time, the only victory that he achieved on-court in the season was during a Kooyong Classic exhibition match.

However, it seems that his views about playing exhibition matches still remain the same even after retiring. And his recent comments have fueled the debate about playing in the exhibition matches even more!