Andy Murray claims ‘nobody cares’ about Saudi tennis event
Andy Murray has criticised the exhibition tennis event due to take place in October in Saudi Arabia
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Andy Murray has criticised the movie-style promotional trailer for the exhibition Six Kings Slam in Saudi Arabia, calling it a tournament “nobody cares about”.
The Six Kings Slam has launched with a Los Perez-directed full film trailer to promote the event, lasting longer than five minutes and using cinematic techniques to preview the event lauded as part of the Riyadh season.
It opens with the statement: ‘Riyadh Season presents Call of Kings’ and there are three masked men involved in an Indiana Jones-style parkour and underground cave puzzles with traps.
The next scene is a futuristic Carlos Alcaraz in virtual reality-style taking on a metallic robot on a silver metal tennis court. Jannik Sinner is dressed in Renaissance clothing using tennis balls to carve out a statue of himself.
Holger Rune is depicted as a Viking warrior on a ship, Daniil Medvedev charging on top of a bear wearing armour like something straight out of Philip Pullman. There is a giant moving clay Rafael Nadal and a Jedi knight-style hooded Novak Djokovic meditating in a snow-covered forest surrounded by wolves.
After introducing the characters, they are all stood on a mountain top with a tennis court burned into the earth before it finally becomes clear what the event is, Six Kings Slam, which will take place between the 16th and 19th October at The Venue, Riyadh.
British tennis player Liam Broady had tweeted out the tournament promotion, saying on X: “Speechless as to how damn cool this promo is. Probably the best I’ve ever seen in tennis. Would watch this movie. 10/10.”
Murray had a different take on it replying: “Except it’s not a movie and you won’t watch it because it’s an exhibition tennis event that nobody cares about.”
The tournament is the latest in a number of exhibition matches to close out the 2024 season, but the one in Riyadh has the highest prize money in tennis history on the line, despite there being no ATP ranking points on offer.
Each of the competitors are reportedly guaranteed a minimum of £1.12m for being involved, while the winner can take home £4.5m, almost twice as much as the US Open prize money.