{"id":2651,"date":"2026-08-18T16:02:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:02:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=2651"},"modified":"2026-08-18T16:02:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T16:02:34","slug":"carlos-alcarazs-lengthy-injury-absence-could-be-a-good-sign-according-to-leading-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=2651","title":{"rendered":"Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s lengthy injury absence could be a \u2018good sign\u2019, according to leading expert"},"content":{"rendered":"

A leading athlete welfare and injury expert has told Tennis365 that Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>\u2019s lengthy absence due to a wrist injury is a result of \u201cone of two things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alcaraz has not played since injuring his wrist during his opening round win at the Barcelona Open on 14 April.<\/p>\n

The seven-time Grand Slam winner is reportedly suffering from tenosynovitis \u2014 which is an inflammation of the tendon sheath in the wrist.<\/p>\n

The world No 2 has already missed the last two Grand Slams and last four Masters 1000 tournaments, and he is yet to confirm when he will return to the match court.<\/p>\n

Alcaraz remains on the entry list for the 2026 US Open<\/a>, but many think that the New York major \u2014 which will begin on Sunday 30 August \u2014 will come too soon for the defending champion.<\/p>\n

The Spanish superstar withdrew from the Cincinnati Masters, and he is not scheduled to play any tournaments before the US Open.<\/p>\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 assessed that Alcaraz\u2019s significant spell on the sidelines could be \u201ca good sign.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say they are managing it very carefully, and I would think, in some ways, it\u2019s a good sign because they\u2019re obviously taking it really seriously,\u201d Smith said in an exclusive interview with Tennis365.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was suggested that this [injury] was tenosynovitis, which is an overuse injury \u2014 like Emma Raducanu and Jack Draper\u2019s injuries. All three are overuse injuries where they\u2019re not coping with the load and demands of the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen other players drop out for shorter periods and try to jump back in\u2026 I think we\u2019re seeing potentially a very different philosophical approach [from Alcaraz], to say, let\u2019s potentially pause, let\u2019s not have an issue when we come back out and it flares back up again.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I would think it\u2019s one of two things. It\u2019s either really, really challenging, and he\u2019s still having a lot of symptoms, or they\u2019re being really patient and they\u2019re thinking about how to do this the right way, and how to bring him back and ensure this doesn\u2019t rear its head and they don\u2019t have recurrences.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, without being in that team, it\u2019s hard for us to understand which of those that is. But for his sake, you would hope that it\u2019s the latter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith has also told Tennis365 that he would\u00a0be \u201cshocked\u201d if Alcaraz played the US Open.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cGiven how patient they\u2019ve been, I would be shocked to see him at the US Open,\u201d said Smith.<\/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: Carlos Alcaraz sent big warning as he weighs up \u2018risky\u2019 US Open decision<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s lengthy injury absence could be a \u2018good sign\u2019, according to leading expert<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A leading athlete welfare and injury expert has told Tennis365 that Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s lengthy absence due to a wrist injury is a result of \u201cone of two things.\u201d Alcaraz has not played since injuring his wrist during his opening round win at the Barcelona Open on 14 April. The seven-time Grand Slam winner is reportedly […]<\/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-2651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651","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=2651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}