Four months without a match. That is the gap Carlos Alcaraz will carry into New York, after the world No. 2 pulled out of the Cincinnati Open on Tuesday with the wrist injury that has kept him off tour since April.
The Spaniard has not played a competitive match since 15 April, when he retired before his second round at the Barcelona Open with pain in his right wrist.
The diagnosis was tenosynovitis, an inflammation of the tendon sheath, and it also cost him Madrid, Rome, Roland Garros and Wimbledon. Cincinnati was supposed to be the moment he came back.
Instead, the Cincinnati Open field that runs from 8 to 23 August will take the court without its defending champion.
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Bob Moran, the tournament director, said in the tournament statement:
“We know Carlos is doing everything he can to get back to playing tournaments as soon as possible. We wish him the best with his recovery and look forward to welcoming him back to Cincinnati in the future.”
One warm-up event, seven days out
The US Open begins on 30 August. Between now and then, the only ATP event Alcaraz can conceivably enter is the Winston-Salem Open, a 250-level tournament that starts on 23 August, the same day the Cincinnati final is played and seven days before Alcaraz would need to walk out at Flushing Meadows.
That leaves him with, at best, a handful of matches at a low-level event before a fortnight of best-of-five tennis against the deepest fields on tour.
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A cold return to a Grand Slam without a competitive match since spring is the scenario his team spent the summer trying to avoid.
Sinner and Djokovic close in
While Alcaraz has been absent, the men’s tour has reshaped around him.
Jannik Sinner, the world No. 1, skipped the Canadian Open in Montreal for the second year running and has confirmed his entry in Cincinnati, having claimed the first five Masters 1000 titles of the season (Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo, Madrid and Rome).
Novak Djokovic, whose last appearance at the tournament came in a 2023 final against Alcaraz himself, will also be in the field, his first Cincinnati campaign in three years.
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“I am very happy to announce that I will be in Cincinnati this year, for the first time since 2023,” Djokovic said in the tournament’s announcement video.
The hard-court run-in to Flushing Meadows will feature the two contenders Alcaraz would most have wanted to measure himself against, plus the 39-year-old Djokovic returning fresh from Wimbledon. Alcaraz will watch it happen.
A defence with barely any matches
Alcaraz has posted training videos in recent weeks, and Yahoo Sports reported his wrist had been described as healed before the Cincinnati decision, with the turnaround from practice to Masters 1000 tennis judged too tight.
If Alcaraz does play in New York, he will arrive as the defending champion, but without the run of hard-court matches that has preceded every deep US Open run of his career.
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