{"id":2613,"date":"2026-08-10T16:30:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T16:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=2613"},"modified":"2026-08-10T16:30:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T16:30:58","slug":"carlos-alcaraz-injury-leading-expert-would-be-shocked-if-spaniard-plays-us-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=2613","title":{"rendered":"Carlos Alcaraz injury: Leading expert \u2018would be shocked\u2019 if Spaniard plays US Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leading injury prevention and athlete welfare expert Stephen Smith has spoken to Tennis365 about the \u201crisk\u201d of Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> playing the 2026 US Open following his wrist injury.<\/p>\n

Alcaraz is the reigning US Open champion, having defeated his biggest rival, Jannik Sinner, in the 2025 final to secure his second crown at the New York major.<\/p>\n

The Spanish icon started the 2026 season by capturing his maiden Australian Open title, which saw him become the youngest man in tennis history to complete the career Grand Slam.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old did not compete at the last two majors \u2014 Roland Garros and Wimbledon \u2014 due to a right wrist injury that has kept him out of action since April.<\/p>\n

Alcaraz remains on the entry list for the US Open<\/a>, which will begin on 30 August, but his participation is far from certain after he pulled out of the Cincinnati Masters.<\/p>\n

The seven-time Grand Slam champion is not scheduled to play any tournaments before the US Open. He could take a wildcard for the ATP 250 event in Winston-Salem, which is held the week before the year\u2019s final Slam, but this feels unlikely.<\/p>\n

Returning from over four months out with a challenging injury to play at Flushing Meadows seems like a difficult ask, and many expect Alcaraz to delay his comeback further.<\/p>\n

More Tennis News<\/h2>\n

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Smith, who is the founder and CEO of Kitman Labs \u2014 the world\u2019s leading sports science and performance intelligence company \u2014 revealed he would be \u201cshocked\u201d if Alcaraz played the US Open.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the US Open compounds almost every welfare risk at once \u2014 extreme heat and humidity in New York, hardest surface in the game, best-of-five matches that can go four or five hours,\u201d said Smith in an exclusive interview with Tennis365.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a guy that\u2019s been off for a significant period of time, as well, you would expect that he probably would play more sets than he normally would given the talent he has.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor anyone managing some sort of soft tissue or bone issue, the court surface offers the least protection of any of the majors.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven how patient they\u2019ve been, I would be shocked to see him at the US Open.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re taking that patient approach and you\u2019re progressively building, why throw somebody back in to the hardest thing they might do all year? Surely, you want that to be a progressive build.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ NEXT: \u2018Everything with Carlos Alcaraz is fine after Cincinnati Open withdrawal\u2019, says legendary coach<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Carlos Alcaraz injury: Leading expert \u2018would be shocked\u2019 if Spaniard plays US Open<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leading injury prevention and athlete welfare expert Stephen Smith has spoken to Tennis365 about the \u201crisk\u201d of Carlos Alcaraz playing the 2026 US Open following his wrist injury. Alcaraz is the reigning US Open champion, having defeated his biggest rival, Jannik Sinner, in the 2025 final to secure his second crown at the New York […]<\/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-2613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2613","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=2613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}