Carlos Alcaraz will miss at least Wimbledon because of a right wrist injury, and John McEnroe said the timing has changed the shape of the tennis season almost overnight. With the two-time defending French Open champion out, McEnroe said the door has opened more for Novak Djokovic, Alexander Zverev and a handful of others who were already chasing a harder path to the title.
Djokovic, a 24-time major champion and world No. 4, no longer has to imagine getting through both Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner to win a major at Roland Garros or Wimbledon if the Spaniard cannot play. McEnroe called the bracket “wide open” outside of Sinner, though he still put the world No. 1 at the center of the conversation after a run that has looked almost untouchable.
Sinner has won five straight ATP Masters 1000 titles in 2026, six straight titles overall and 29 straight matches after taking the Italian Open title on Sunday. He also beat Djokovic in five sets in the Australian Open semifinals in January, a result that underlined how high the bar has been for anyone trying to stop him. McEnroe said he would still take Sinner over the field, but added that Alcaraz’s absence gives other players a chance to make runs they were not likely to have before.
That matters most because the injury changes two of the season’s biggest tournaments at once. Alcaraz is the two-time defending French Open champion, and his absence affects both Roland Garros and Wimbledon, where Djokovic has built some of his best work. The Serbian has won Roland Garros three times and Wimbledon seven times, and McEnroe said grass gives him his best shot now because the points are shorter and he already knows how to close on that surface.
Patrick McEnroe added that Djokovic would first need to survive the opening rounds at Roland Garros before he could be talked about as one of the favorites. He also pointed to Arthur Fils in “the younger crew” as someone who could make the semifinals, and mentioned Learner Tien as another player who could make a little run. John McEnroe said Felix Auger-Aliassime, Daniil Medvedev, Ben Shelton and Taylor Fritz could also benefit from the change in the draw.
The tension in all of this is that Djokovic has seen the path open before and still has to take it. He lost to Dino Prižmić in his first match at the Italian Open earlier this month, which is a reminder that a clearer route on paper is not the same thing as a clean run on court. With Alcaraz sidelined and Sinner in the form of a runaway favorite, the French Open and Wimbledon now look less like a two-man lock and more like a test of who can actually take advantage.
