MADRID — Carlos Alcaraz will not be at Wimbledon. The 23-year-old announced on Tuesday that he is also withdrawing from the grass court swing due to a right wrist injury, a decision that raises serious questions about the severity of the problem.
“My recovery is going well and I feel much better, but unfortunately I am not yet ready to play, which is why I have to pull out of the grass court swing at Queen’s and Wimbledon,” the world No. 2 wrote on social media. “They are two tournaments that are truly special to me and I will miss them greatly. We keep working to return as soon as possible.”
The seven-time Grand Slam champion was injured in mid-April during the first round of the Barcelona ATP 500. Although he won that match, he withdrew from the tournament the following day and subsequently pulled out of Madrid, Rome and Roland Garros. With the clay court season behind him, Alcaraz and his team had pinned their hopes on the grass, a surface that is less physically demanding and one that has suited him particularly well in recent years.
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Wimbledon champion in 2023 and 2024 and runner-up in 2025, Alcaraz also won Queen’s last year. His withdrawal from the British swing will cost him another 1,800 ATP ranking points, effectively ending any realistic chance of overtaking Jannik Sinner at the top of the rankings for the remainder of the season — unless the Italian, dominant throughout the first half of 2026, suffers an injury or an inexplicable dip in form.
The ranking, however, is the least of Alcaraz’s concerns right now. His right wrist is his only priority. Pulling out of Wimbledon with six weeks still to go before the third Grand Slam of the year gives some indication of how serious the injury is.
There are recent precedents at the elite level that Alcaraz and his team will surely have studied closely: poorly managed wrist injuries have cut short the careers of great champions such as Argentina’s Juan Martín Del Potro and Austria’s Dominic Thiem.
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When will the Spanish player be able to return? After Wimbledon, the professional circuit enters a quieter period until early August, when the North American hard court swing begins with the Masters 1000 events in Canada and Cincinnati ahead of the US Open. Alcaraz is defending champion in Cincinnati and New York. His best result in Canada is a quarter-final appearance in 2023.
“At 23 years old, with a very long career still ahead of him, everyone around Carlos believes there is no reason to rush. Even if that means being cautious and taking longer than strictly necessary,” Italian journalist Luigi Ansaloni wrote recently in La Gazzetta dello Sport.
“For this reason, two other scenarios are circulating. The first is a return on the American hard courts. The second, more extreme: six months out, which would mean the end of his season.”
His return date is currently unknown. And he made it clear weeks ago: he will not push things even slightly with a joint as unpredictable as the wrist. The wait for Alcaraz goes on. The question now is who will stop Jannik Sinner in the meantime.
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