Carlos Alcaraz clearly affirmed that his long absence from the tennis court has changed his view of the ATP schedule. The Spanish player is now willing to actively skip some tournaments in the future.
The 23-year-old tennis player returned to the singles event at the US Open 2026 after about 4 months of rest due to a wrist injury. Alcaraz did not play any official singles matches for 139 days before defeating Roman Safiullin 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 in the first round in New York.
His comeback journey continued with the match against Jaime Faria. The world No. 3 player lost the opening set but quickly regained his form, winning 3 sets in a row to win the overall victory 4-6, 6-0, 6-3, 6-2.
However, after the match, Carlos spent a lot of time sharing about issues outside of the match results. A wrist injury forced him to be sidelined longer than he wanted, and the former world No. 1 emphasized that he would not wait until he is injured to decide to temporarily be sidelined again.
Honestly, I had to be out of action longer than I wanted. Looking at the schedule, it's clear that I don't want to be out of action due to injury. However, in the future, I will definitely take the initiative to spend time resting.
Maybe not 4 months, but it will be 1 or 2 months, and I will skip some tournaments, because I can't participate in all of them.
I see ATP is adding more important tournaments. In a way, they are forcing us to compete.
Although ATP also says: You can skip 1 or 2 tournaments, you can decide your own schedule. But the reality is that there are many Masters 1000 and Grand Slam tournaments, if we participate in all the mandatory tournaments according to ATP regulations, we will have to compete for 40 weeks a year.
That is impossible, and we are witnessing many players suffering injuries as well as exhaustion. If there are no solutions, this situation will be even worse in the future.
For me personally, having to take a break from playing due to recent injuries is not a good thing, but I affirm that in the future, I will definitely take the initiative to rest and skip some tournaments.
This is not the first time Alcaraz has spoken out about this issue. At Laver Cup 2024, when he was only 21 years old, the Spanish player warned that the number of tournaments is becoming a difficult problem.
At that time, Carlos said that there were too many mandatory tournaments in the season and predicted that the situation could be even worse.
He said very frankly and simply: "Perhaps they are trying to kill us in some way.
He continued to mention this issue in Paris in October 2025. The then world No. 1 tennis player pointed out that tennis players have to move continuously from week to week without enough time to practice or rest properly.
Most Masters 1000 tournaments have also switched to a 12-day competition format since 2025. This is another factor also included in discussions about the competition schedule.
Now, Alcaraz decided that protecting his body is much more important than appearing in every tournament.
