MADRID — There are comebacks that allow for time. A small tournament, a gentle draw, a couple of matches to get the legs moving again, test the wrist, and rediscover old instincts. Carlos Alcaraz will have none of that. He will have to hit the ground running and shine.
After more than four months out of competition, the Spaniard announced this Thursday that he will make his comeback directly at the US Open. In New York, facing a Grand Slam draw, carrying the pressure of defending his title, and playing best-of-five-set matches from day one. The tournament begins on August 30, and Alcaraz will arrive without having played a single official match since retiring in mid-April at the ATP 500 in Barcelona due to a right wrist injury.
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At first, Alcaraz couldn’t run. He couldn’t return at Roland Garros. Nor at Wimbledon. He then withdrew from the Canada Masters 1000. And when he was finally able to run, he chose not to: the first real target he set for himself was to return in Cincinnati prior to the US Open, but he ultimately pulled out because he still didn’t feel fully ready. The priority remained unchanged: heal the wrist, rebuild trust in it, and prevent a rushed return from turning a serious injury into a much bigger problem.
Now he is ready to try and defend his crown. However, that does not necessarily mean he is fully prepared for everything a Grand Slam demands. Therein lies the true challenge facing Alcaraz. A practice session can prove that the wrist responds well. It can restore speed, intensity, serve, forehand, and backhand. Alcaraz was even able to test himself in Murcia against Holger Rune—one of those trials his team set up to see how his body would react under conditions very similar to New York’s, with high humidity and sweltering heat in the middle of the day.
But some things cannot be trained. Andy Roddick summarized it recently on Served: there is simply no way to replicate the conditions of a best-of-five-set match in practice. The physical toll, the competitive tension, the three or four hours on court, the obligation to maintain intensity when the body begins to protest, the recovery the following morning… That is the test awaiting Alcaraz after the longest layoff of his career.
“Nobody’s going to like to hear this, but I think it’s really hard to come back and have your first tournament be best-of-five sets,” Roddick said on his podcast just days before Alcaraz’s final decision became public. “It’s just that when you take your time and you’ve been so diligent about keeping yourself safe and not acting irresponsibly, the risk re-enters: suddenly, you’re playing a five-set match in the first round of the US Open. That would go against everything he’s done so far by taking things slowly and being patient with his injury.”
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Alcaraz and his team, however, are 100% convinced that the time to return has come. They are fully aware of the difficulty involved in doing so at a Grand Slam, but it is also true that the battle for the final Major of the year remains wide open: Jannik Sinner has been dealing with knee issues, Alexander Zverev has hardly shone during the American hard-court swing, and Novak Djokovic remains a question mark.
As the Australian Open champion, Alcaraz has the chance to wrap up the year with another Major in his pocket, proving to the world that, like the absolute greats, he is capable of returning at the highest level following a long injury lay-off.
Alcaraz will have no Cincinnati to test the waters. There will be no warm-up tournament. His very first match will be a Grand Slam examination. No safety net. No room to ease back in. And perhaps that is the most fascinating element of his comeback.
For four months, the question was when Carlos Alcaraz would return. Now that the answer is here, a much harder question begins: how long will it take for him to truly be Carlos Alcaraz again?
