Carlos Alcaraz believes tennis’ relentless schedule is “going in the wrong direction” and feels players are being “pushed” to feature in too many tournaments.

The world No 3, who will play his Shanghai Masters opener on Saturday, was speaking two days after successfully defending the Japan Open for his third title of an injury hit year which saw him miss four-and-a-half months between April and August with a wrist issue.

World No 1 Jannik Sinner announced this week he has ended his season early due to a knee problem.

Alcaraz said: “One of the reasons we had to see the players who are getting injured, they [ATP officials] are pushing us too much out of the line sometimes to play a lot of tournaments, to play a lot of matches.

“It’s getting in the wrong direction.

“I just wish Jannik the best for these months, just to be in good shape for the next season.

“Hopefully see him soon, but they have to see a little bit what’s going on on the tour along with the players.”

Sky Sports News has contacted the ATP for a response to Alcaraz’s comments.

Djokovic: Sinner has to think long term

Sinner has not played since beating Alexander Zverev in the Wimbledon final in July.

Novak Djokovic, who claimed his 102nd career title at the China Open on Tuesday, said of the Italian calling time on his 2026 campaign: “He’s been the best player in the world, been a dominant force for the last couple of years along with Carlos [Alcaraz].

“For sure tennis misses him but at the same time he has to think long term.

“That’s smart because as someone that always tried to have the big picture ‌in my mind, I really support that kind of thinking and mindset.

“It’s important that you give yourself more years to your career so you have more chances to accomplish all of your ⁠objectives.

“If you’re away from the tour for so long and then make a comeback, you have to deal with more things than you normally have to deal with. You’re evaluating with your team constantly.

“When you get the green light to be able to compete, then it’s mental. You’re on the court and you’re thinking: ‘Am I really completely healed and free to make this run?’

“For him if it’s a knee, it’s affecting everything, affecting every single movement.”

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Lewis Hamilton has revealed Ferrari held a “huge discussion” to reflect on a strategic error at the Bahrain Grand Prix that he says “wasn’t good enough”.

Ferrari fitted both Hamilton and his team-mate Charles Leclerc with slick dry tyres at last weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix, which was being hosted in Malaysia and started on a wet track that the Italian squad anticipated would quickly dry out once the race began.

The decision was proven wrong as Hamilton fell from his starting position of second to almost the back of the field in the opening stages, with the 14 of 22 drivers that started on the intermediate tyre gaining a huge advantage.

Hamilton ultimately produced a stunning fightback to finish on the podium in third, but having fallen 106 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli, reiterated his desire to see improvement from his team ahead of this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix.

“It wasn’t good enough and we’ve had a huge discussion about it,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.

“And we’re going to try and work on how we can come to a better conclusion more consistently in the future.”

Before revealing those talks, Hamilton had defended Ferrari from what he feels is disproportionate criticism the team receive compared to their F1 rivals.

McLaren also started the race in Sepang on dry tyres and suffered the same fate as Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri slid towards the back of the pack.

“We do for some reason as a team get far more flack than anybody else,” the seven-time world champion said. “McLaren made the same decision and no one even said anything about it.

“You know, they made some excuse of some sort. McLaren made the same mistake and the same call.”

‘The call didn’t come from the strategist’

Hamilton also offered a specific defence of Ferrari’s strategists, insisting they alone were not responsible for the starting tyre choice.

He added: “It was ultimately a mistake but it’s not the strategists. I think, unfortunately, my strategy team gets the brunt of the (criticism for the) call.

“But in actual fact, the call didn’t come from the strategist. The call comes from collectively, us working together.

“(Team principal) Fred (Vasseur), (head of track engineering) Matteo (Togninalli), myself, my engineer, we make the decision together. And we discuss it and we put our input, we put all our ideas and information into the pot, whether that’s good or not…

“I went into the pit lane, I’m like, ‘it’s wet’. I go to the pit wall, I’m like, ‘it’s wet’. Come back to the garage, I’m like, ‘guys, we should be on the inters’.

“And then they all give a different perspective. And if you’ve got three people giving you a different perspective, you eventually get convinced by that. And you’re like, ‘OK, I’ll go with what you suggest.’ And that’s how you work as a team.

“And you hope three are more right than one. But in some scenarios, it’s the other way around. And you were right and your gut feeling was right. And then you’re like, ‘damn, I should have gone with my gut’. But everyone’s generally trying to do the best they can.”

‘We’re here to attack’ – Hamilton hopeful of Singapore chances

Hamilton is hopeful Ferrari’s car will be suited to the Marina Bay Street Circuit this weekend, with the track potentially providing the team with their best chance of victory over the final seven rounds of the season.

“I think with our car, it’s generally good on street circuits, particularly when there’s not particularly long straights,” Hamilton said.

“If you look at the last races, we were quick through corners, not so quick on the straight line. This is a high-drag circuit, so I’m hoping the advantage others have on those long straights kind of comes down a little bit and we can start matching them through keeping up with them on the pace, through corners.

“I think for us, it’s just making sure we’ve got a great, stable platform underneath us, particularly in the bumpy zones because it’s bumpy here.”

With Singapore hosting a Sprint weekend for the first time, meaning there is only one practice session before Sprint Qualifying on Friday, Hamilton believes quickly finding a strong setup will be crucial.

He added: “We’ve looked at Monaco, we’ve looked at Montreal, we’ve looked at Baku’s setup. We’re coming here and it is requesting something different.

“I’ve been pushing the car in a certain direction, and I think we are slowly making gains and improvements.

“We’re here to attack. Qualifying is key, and it would be really great if we could start tomorrow on the right foot and then just be attacking in qualifying, but we have to wait and see.”

Leclerc: Singapore layout seems good for us

Leclerc is also hopeful Singapore could present an opportunity for he or Hamilton to add to their sole victories this season, but is taking nothing for granted.

Ferrari failed to meet pre-weekend expectations when many considered them favourites for victory in Monaco and Budapest earlier this year, but claimed surprise victories when Hamilton won in Barcelona and Leclerc at Silverstone.

Asked whether Singapore represented Ferrari’s best chance to add another victory this season, Leclerc replied: “Maybe. It definitely is one of those tracks where the layout seems to be pretty good for us.

“Whether this will pay off or not… Budapest and Monaco were strong layouts for us on paper and it didn’t go well. Silverstone was a bad layout on paper and it went really well.

“I don’t know if it tells the full story but we’ll give our best. Historically we’ve been quite strong here but we cannot really rely on the past.

“We’ve got to do everything we can to be in the best possible situation. It’s also true that the tendency lately has been that we’ve been losing a bit of performance compared to the guys in front, so to win will be very difficult.”

Sky Sports F1’s live Singapore GP Sprint weekend schedule

Friday October 9
9am: Singapore GP Practice (session starts at 9.30am)*
11.30am: Team Bosses’ Press Conference
1pm: Singapore GP Sprint Qualifying (session starts at 1.30pm)*

Saturday October 10
9am: Singapore GP Sprint build-up*
10am: Singapore GP SPRINT*
1pm: Singapore Grand Prix Qualifying build-up
2pm: SINGAPORE GP QUALIFYING*
4pm: Ted’s Qualifying Notebook

Sunday October 11
11.30am: Grand Prix Sunday: Singapore GP build-up
1pm: THE SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX
3pm: Chequered Flag: Singapore GP reaction
4pm: Ted’s Notebook

*also on Sky Sports Main Event

Formula 1 is in Singapore for the last Sprint weekend of the season with track action starting this Friday, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime

George Russell will race Mercedes’ older-specification car, while Kimi Antonelli will run an upgraded package at the Singapore Grand Prix as the team bid to get to the bottom of why the updates introduced in Malaysia did not deliver the expected performance.

The world championship leaders brought their first big upgrade to their W17 cars since the end of May to last week’s race but unexpectedly endured a challenging weekend on F1’s return to Sepang, with Max Verstappen instead proving the dominant force and claiming Red Bull’s first win of the season.

In an unusual move, Mercedes will now split their packages across their two drivers for the whole Sprint weekend in Singapore, with Russell – who will start at the back of Sunday’s main race grid owing to an engine penalty, following his car’s failure last Sunday – running the older aerodynamic package last raced in Baku and Antonelli the one that debuted with difficulty at Sepang.

Russell revealed he was the one who first floated such an idea, with the decision to do so ultimately becoming a “no-brainer” once they knew he was going to be starting last for the Grand Prix this weekend anyway.

“Well, actually, I instigated the conversation prior to the race on Sunday,” revealed Russell, who slipped a season-high 84 points behind team-mate Antonelli after dropping out of third place with five laps to go at Sepang.

“So when the failure happened, it was kind of a no-brainer because we were kind of 50-50 about it pre-race.

“And I was more in favour to do it, even pre-race. Whereas now, it is a total no-brainer.”

It means Russell will again race with the package he took to an impressive victory in Azerbaijan two races ago.

“It is back!” said Russell of the Baku-spec W17.

“Obviously, Malaysia was the worst weekend of the year for us as a team in terms of pace, qualifying result.

“Of course, we probably both would have been on the podium [had his power unit not failed], but it was a difficult one. And we don’t know whether that was a Malaysia specific or whether that was anything to do with the upgrade.

“There’s no major science telling us there’s anything to do with the upgrade, but we don’t measure performance in F1 on how much downforce a car produces, you measure it with a stopwatch, and the stopwatch wasn’t great in Malaysia.

“So let’s see this weekend. I’m very happy to be back on that package and do the compare. I’m not really in any sort of fight this weekend, or the championship for that regard, so it’s the right place to do it.”

Will front wing addition unlock new package’s performance?

Russell also revealed that the newer package running on Antonelli’s car will be boosted by the arrival of a front wing in Singapore that had originally been due to be part of the initial package at Sepang.

“I hope the upgrade that is on Kimi’s side works as we expect, because as a team, we need that to be the case, and it would be slightly concerning for us if the new package we had in Malaysia is not working as we expected,” he added.

“We have a front wing this weekend that Kimi’s running that we didn’t have in Malaysia. The package was meant to come with the front wing – maybe that was a reason why it wasn’t working so well.

“There’s nothing telling us it shouldn’t work. But of course, the car I had in Baku, I won in Baku, Kimi won in Madrid. It’s still a fast car, so hopefully we can have some good fun.”

Asked about the new front wing, Antonelli said: “I hope [it makes the difference]! That’s the question we will try to answer.

“George is going back on the old package, which we know works really well, especially on these kind of tracks. On my side we will try to find and answer for this package and hopefully we will understand it more and finally extract the potential of the package.

“Of course, we will have the front wing, even though it’s just one front wing, but let’s see. I think Sepang was overall a little bit of an outlier because of the tarmac, the temperatures, but hopefully this weekend we will be able to put the car in a better place and extract more from the package.”

Antonelli said he was happy to be sticking with the updated W17.

“We really want to understand this new package and try to strike the maximum out of it because the team has done a tremendous job,” added the Italian

“They’ve put in so much work on this new package and it would be just a shame to write it off so early.

“I feel like I’m quite comfortable on keeping it and, actually, I really want to help the team out to understand it more and to try to extract the potential.”

Antonelli also confirmed that he was “committed to the new package for the whole weekend”, with no option to revert to the older-spec during the Sprint event should the older parts on Russell’s car be proving more competitive.

Russell expects second grid penalty before season is out

While Antonelli will hope to contend for victory in both the Sprint and main Grand Prix at Marina Bay, Russell’s hopes of fighting at the front are set to be restricted to the shorter-form race on Saturday ahead of his engine-change penalty being applied to Sunday’s grid.

Russell will be running a fresh power unit all weekend, but it will not feature the ADUO (Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities) upgrade Mercedes have been working on as that update is not in Singapore.

The ADUO upgrade will instead be introduced at a later race, with the United States GP next up in two weeks’ time.

Mercedes had hoped to coincide the expected introduction on Russell’s car of a penalty-triggering fifth engine of the season at the same race that the ADUO was deployed, but that will now not be possible.

Russell said: “We were waiting to take the engine penalty with the ADUO update but obviously unfortunately we’ve had to take it here.

“But with seven races remaining, that’s longer than the engines are designed for. Unfortunately it means I’ll be taking another penalty at some point between the next race and the end of the season.

“So, yeah, it feels a little bit one thing after another right now but that’s just how the cookie crumbles.”

Russell, who won last year in Singapore, has vowed to throw caution to the wind this weekend as he bids to salvage a strong result.

“Yeah, all-out attack, just trying to enjoy the weekend,” he added..

“Obviously, if you could choose where to take the penalty in the season, this would be probably second bottom of the list after Monaco. But, unfortunately, we had no choice but to take it here.

“Singapore is a place I love and, yeah, I’ll try and carve my way through the pack.”

Sky Sports F1’s live Singapore GP Sprint weekend schedule

Friday October 9
9am: Singapore GP Practice (session starts at 9.30am)*
11.30am: Team Bosses’ Press Conference
1pm: Singapore GP Sprint Qualifying (session starts at 1.30pm)*

Saturday October 10
9am: Singapore GP Sprint build-up*
10am: Singapore GP SPRINT*
1pm: Singapore Grand Prix Qualifying build-up
2pm: SINGAPORE GP QUALIFYING*
4pm: Ted’s Qualifying Notebook

Sunday October 11
11.30am: Grand Prix Sunday: Singapore GP build-up
1pm: THE SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX
3pm: Chequered Flag: Singapore GP reaction
4pm: Ted’s Notebook

*also on Sky Sports Main Event

Formula 1 is in Singapore for the last Sprint weekend of the season with track action starting this Friday, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime