Exhibitions are meant to promote the sport and take it to new audiences. Organisers want the best players in the world to feature because they will sell more tickets. <\/p>\n
Roger Federer played Rafael Nadal in Cape Town in 2020 in front of 51,954 fans – a reported record, external<\/a> for a tennis crowd at the time, albeit not an official match.<\/p>\n Alcaraz – a gifted, highly entertaining shot-maker – plays a lot of exhibitions. <\/p>\n He faced Americans Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe in New York and North Carolina respectively at the start of the year.<\/p>\n Alcaraz and Tiafoe also took part in an event in Puerto Rico, and are scheduled to play alongside Emma Raducanu and Amanda Anisimova in New Jersey in December.<\/p>\n The Spaniard has also been vocal about the strain of the increasingly packed calendar, saying in 2024 they are “going to kill us in some way”.<\/a><\/p>\n When asked last year about playing so many exhibitions, Alcaraz said: “I have seen that many people talk about my calendar because I have put many exhibitions [in].<\/p>\n “But you have to separate the calendar and the exhibitions – they are different things.”<\/p>\n