Carlos Alcaraz has been forced to withdraw from the Barcelona Open after experiencing wrist pain during his opening-round match at the ATP 500 event.<\/p>\n
The Spaniard collected a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Finn Otto Virtanen during his first Barcelona match, but appeared extremely worried at the end of the first set.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz<\/a> received a medical timeout and was treated around his forearm and wrist area \u2013 saying, in Spanish, that he was experiencing pain every time he hit a forehand.<\/p>\n Alcaraz\u2019s withdrawal mans that Tomas Machac will move into the quarter-finals and will next play either Andrey Rublev or Lorenzo Sonego.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a more serious injury than we all expected, and I have to listen to my body so it doesn\u2019t affect me in the future,\u201d the Spaniard stated during his withdrawal press conference.<\/p>\n \u201cWith great sadness, I have to return home and recover as quickly as possible for the upcoming tournaments.\u201d<\/p>\n Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer\u2019s \u2018biggest fight\u2019 finally disclosed by tennis expert<\/a><\/p>\n Stefanos Tsitsipas reveals \u2018not easy\u2019 schedule shakeup as he falls outside of the world\u2019s top 75<\/a><\/p>\n Less than 24 hours prior to his arrival in Barcelona, Alcaraz had competed in the final of the Monte-Carlo Masters, where he was the defending champion.<\/p>\n Unfortunately for the six-time Grand Slam champion, it was rival Jannik Sinner who was victorious 7-6(5), 6-3 \u2013 the Italian\u2019s first clay-court Masters 1000 title.<\/p>\n Additionally, Sinner\u2019s trophy lift allowed him to leapfrog Alcaraz\u2019s ranking and retake the world No 1 spot for the first time since mid-2025.<\/p>\n After his first-round victory, he sought to quell any concerns during his press conference and compared it to forearm pain, which he had experienced during the clay-court season two years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just discomfort, discomfort that pops up, considering the few days I\u2019ve had to recover, when everything has been practically back-to-back, so in the end things come up in some unusual movements,\u201d the world No 2 stated.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve tried to calm ourselves down, try to keep going, and above all, be more relaxed, especially in the second set, and see what happens.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a discomfort I\u2019ve had before, which has never led to anything more serious, so let\u2019s hope it\u2019s the same this time.\u201d<\/p>\n Aside from his injury woes, the Spaniard also commented on the struggles of sticking to his schedule \u2013 given his Monaco success.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, to be honest, it\u2019s been tough, it\u2019s been a bit of a struggle,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the end, my first contact with Barcelona was this morning, for about an hour, and then I had to jump right onto the court to compete, and the conditions are completely different.\u201d<\/p>\n The Barcelona Open withdrawal also means that Alcaraz will drop 255 ranking points, after having made the showpiece match at last year\u2019s edition (losing out to Holger Rune).<\/p>\n Monte-Carlo Masters champion Jannik Sinner will now enter the Madrid Masters with a 390-point lead at the top of the rankings.<\/p>\n Neither played in the Spanish capital last season, meaning \u2013 if both participate \u2013 there is a full 1000 ranking points on offer.<\/p>\n The Madrid Masters takes place from April 22 \u2013 May 3, and will feature a 128-player draw.<\/p>\n The post Carlos Alcaraz \u2018has to listen to body\u2019 as serious injury forces Barcelona Open withdrawal<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Carlos Alcaraz has been forced to withdraw from the Barcelona Open after experiencing wrist pain during his opening-round match at the ATP 500 event. The Spaniard collected a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Finn Otto Virtanen during his first Barcelona match, but appeared extremely worried at the end of the first set. Alcaraz received a medical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2032\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Latest Tennis News<\/h2>\n