What’s the perfect offseason strategy for a winning start to a tennis season? Is it a series of lucrative exhibition matches, or a quiet grind behind the scenes? As the tennis world gears up for the Australian Open, two tennis stars—Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner—are taking wildly different approaches. Some tennis experts have taken notice of this difference in preparations.

Carlos Alcaraz had a spectacular season where he clinched two major titles, which included the French Open and Wimbledon. However, he is not ready to put down his racquet for the season yet. The Spanish tennis player played in two huge American exhibition matches last week. The 21-year-old played the first match against Ben Shelton at Madison Square Garden while in the second one he took on Frances Tiafoe in Charlotte.

Speaking on the Rennae Stubbs Podcast, Caitlin Thompson, founder of the tennis magazine “Racquet,” estimated that he earned about as much as $2 million from just Madison Square Garden. So we can conclude that he probably earned a similar amount from his exhibition match at Charlotte Invitational, which combined is way more than his Wimbledon prize money, claimed tennis journalist, Jon Wertheim. To give you context, in 2024, the prize money awarded to singles winners at the grass slam amounted to 2.9 million U.S. dollars.!

Meanwhile, his competitor, Jannik Sinner, seems to be taking it slow. The Italian player had a dream run this season by securing the Australian Open and the US Open title. He was last seen in action on 17 November at the ATP Finals in Turin, where he was crowned the victor. Since then Sinner has not played anywhere and has been spending his off-season quietly. He was spotted enjoying his downtime playing golf with his father and at the Abu Dhabi F1 race. Seems like he is preparing to defend his title quietly.

For this, the American former tennis player John Isner made a pointed observation on how this could have some serious consequences for Alcaraz.

On Saturday, while making an appearance on the “Nothing Major” podcast alongside Nick Kyrgios. He said, “Jannik Sinner is clearly getting exhibition offers in the off season. Haven’t seen him doing anything like that. They are going about their off season differently. None of us begrudged.”

“Carlos going out there and collecting two massive cheques. But Sinner seems to be putting his head down after his fantastic year and just going back to work. Keeping sort of a low profile and obviously both of them will be ready to go in Australia. But I think if Carlos doesn’t perform that well down the Australian Open, a lot of people are going to jump on the fact that he was in the United States in December playing exhibitions as opposed to getting ready. I don’t think it’s fair, but that’s how it’s going to be.” Carlos Alcaraz has already started to receive backlash!

ATP Chief takes a dig at Carlos Alcaraz’s exhibition matches after schedule critique

The Spaniard has played in four exhibition matches this year. Apart from the two exhibition matches this December, he also played the Six Slam Kings in October in Saudi Arabia and one with Rafael Nadal for Netflix in March earlier this year.

Carlos Alcaraz had previously complained about the packed ATP schedule after the Shanghai Masters. He claimed that the tight timetable was “killing” the players. In response, the ATP chairman Andrea Gaudenzi took a dig at Alcaraz’s many appearances at exhibition matches.

On 9th December he told French publication L’Equipe, “Players choose to play many exhibitions outside the circuit. We don’t see that in other sports…Reduce the season? Yes, but it will then be necessary to reduce the number of ATP 250 tournaments. Afterwards, players can also decide to do fewer exhibitions and spend more time at home to rest.”

Critics, including players like Andy Roddick, have previously expressed concern about squeezing in exhibitions so close to a major tournament. In his Served podcast, the American veteran said, “He’s sort of at the point where he doesn’t want to disappoint anyone, and that’s a tough situation, it really is, he’s going to have to learn how to schedule, how to say no, maybe slightly disappoint someone, sometimes to keep his sanity over time.”

If Alcaraz stumbles in Melbourne, there’s little doubt the narrative will shift quickly to his offseason adventures. As the Australian Open inches closer, the results will speak for themselves. Until then, it’s worth asking: which strategy will prove more effective in the 2025 season? Sinner’s or Alcaraz’s?