On Tuesday, Carlos Alcaraz posted a statement on social media confirming what pretty much everyone in tennis had been quietly hoping would not happen: he is withdrawing from Wimbledon and Queen’s Club. The entire grass-court swing, gone. Just like that.
“My recovery is going well and I feel much better, but unfortunately I’m still not ready to be able to play,” the 23-year-old wrote, with the kind of calm that felt at odds with the chaos his absence creates. “They are two really special tournaments for me and I’ll miss them a lot. We keep working to return as soon as possible.”
The injury in question is his right wrist, which he hurt during April’s Barcelona Open and has not played on since. Alcaraz had already withdrawn from Madrid, Rome, and Roland Garros, three clay-court tournaments he has collectively won four times. He is, for now, simply not there. And tennis, it turns out, is a noticeably different sport without him.
The timing could not be more inconvenient, for the sport if not for Alcaraz personally. He and Jannik Sinner have shared the last nine Grand Slam titles between them, trading the world No. 1 ranking back and forth like it belonged to both of them equally. But with Alcaraz sidelined, Sinner has been left entirely unchallenged, running up a 29-match winning streak and collecting titles at a pace that is deeply impressive and also, frankly, a little one-note without his great rival to push back.
Alcaraz, to his credit, has been admirably unsentimental about all of it. Speaking before his Madrid withdrawal, he was clear-eyed in a way that suggested someone thinking about a career in decades rather than seasons. “I have a very long career ahead of me, with many years still to come,” he said. “Forcing things could really harm me for future tournaments.” Seven Grand Slam titles before your 23rd birthday will do that to a person. You start to think about the long game.
The concern, of course, is that wrist injuries are the ones tennis players fear most. They are notoriously slow to heal and unforgiving if rushed. The hope is that Alcaraz is simply being sensible, protecting something worth protecting, and that he returns to the tour the same player who won Wimbledon twice and made the whole sport feel more exciting just by showing up.
Wimbledon begins June 29. Carlos Alcaraz will not be there. The grass will be just as green. It will just feel a little less interesting.
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