Tennis fans clamoring to see seven-time Grand Slam champion Carlos Alcaraz back on the court have been kept waiting for months – and it looks like that wait isn’t quite over.
Alcaraz pulled out of the Cincinnati Open, a US Open lead-up tournament that begins Aug. 15, due to lingering worries surrounding a wrist injury.,
The superstar tennis player from Spain was diagnosed with wrist tenosynovitis, inflammation in the protective sheath around wrist tendons.
Alcaraz has not appeared on the tour since April’s Barcelona Open, meaning he’s missed half of the majors of the season with his absences at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, along with several other ATP tournaments.
Along with much of the tennis world, Greg Rusedski, the former British No. 1, has expressed concern over what’s really happening with Alcaraz’s progress.
“If it was just a little bit of inflammation, a little problem, he would have been back by now,” Rusedski said on his podcast Off Court with Greg Rusedski.
“The only people who know are Carlos Alcaraz and the rest of his team,” he continued. “But this is taking a lot longer than we thought…We’re just being kept in the dark here. We have no idea what’s going on.”
Tennis365’s Kevin Palmer joined the episode and had a different view, defending Alcaraz’s team’s strategy of radio silence as the right thing to do competition-wise.
Palmer referenced Rafael Nadal at the 2022 French Open, when he played through severe foot issues and had nerves in his foot completely numbed so he could continue on.
Rusedski doesn’t agree with the strategy.
“There will only ever be one Rafa,” Rusedski noted. “A lot of players watch that documentary and think, ‘Oh, I can play through pain.’ Most people can’t, let’s be frank. And if they try to, they make it worse. Their careers could possibly end.”
Should he stay on track, Alcaraz is slated to return to the tour at the U.S. Open, the final major of the year of which he is the defending champion, beginning on Aug. 30.
