Carlos Alcaraz opened his US Open title defense with a straight-set win over Roman Safiullin, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, and looked like a champion still in control of the stage he had come back to defend. The 23-year-old completed the match in 2 hours and 22 minutes and advanced to the second round without the kind of struggle that had followed him into New York.
That was the point of interest around Alcaraz before the first ball was struck. He returned to New York, where he won the first of his seven Grand Slam titles, saying he missed the fans, the energy, the competition and everything, and admitting he had doubts about whether he could get through a five-set match. Instead, he finished with 28 winners, 27 unforced errors and no visible sign of the wrist injury that had kept him out of the previous two Grand Slam tournaments.
His win matters because it answered the most immediate question about his fitness after that layoff. In January, Alcaraz completed the career Grand Slam by winning the Australian Open, joining the four major titles he has now collected across Australia, the US Open and the other Grand Slam events that define the sport. That made his return to New York more than a routine first-round match; it was the first hard check on whether the wrist had truly stopped being a problem.
What made the performance more convincing was the way it cut across the concern he had voiced himself. Alcaraz had wondered aloud if he could finish a long match, even asking whether he could get through four or five sets, but he never let Safiullin into that kind of contest. The Russian matched him with 28 winners of his own, yet finished with 36 unforced errors and never found a way to stretch the match beyond Alcaraz’s control.
The next test comes quickly. Alcaraz will face Jaime Faria in the second round, after Faria beat Jenson Brooksby to advance. Another result on the same day underlined how early the tournament still was: Iga Swiatek beat Wang Xiyu 6-2, 6-3 to move on. For Alcaraz, though, the bigger story is already clear — the defending champion started his week as if the wrist scare belonged to another season.
