Carlos Alcaraz will miss Wimbledon this year after deciding he was still not ready to compete because of a right wrist injury, ruling himself out of the grass-court swing at Queen's and the Grand Slam that begins on 29 June.
The 23-year-old wrote on Instagram on Tuesday that his recovery was going well and that he was feeling much better, but said he had to withdraw from Queen's and Wimbledon. “They are two truly special tournaments for me and I will miss them a lot,” Alcaraz said, adding: “We'll keep working to come back as soon as possible.”
The setback follows last month's Barcelona Open, where Alcaraz withdrew after hurting his right wrist in the first round, and his decision to pull out of the French Open to recover. It also means the two-time defending Wimbledon champion will not get the chance to defend a title he has won twice and that sits among his seven Grand Slam crowns.
Alcaraz had been due to play at Queen's, where he is a two-time winner, before heading to Wimbledon, where he lost the final to Jannik Sinner last year. Instead, he is set to lose more ground in the rankings to Sinner, who replaced him as world number one last month and has won the past six Masters 1,000 tournaments.
The timing matters because the men’s game has already been shaped by the pair’s rivalry. The past nine men's major singles titles have been split between Alcaraz and Sinner, with five of them going to Alcaraz. Sinner has said he will not play any grass-court events before Wimbledon, leaving the season’s biggest title without two of the players who have defined it.
For Alcaraz, the immediate road back now stretches beyond the grass. The source says he will miss the entire grass-court season and most of the clay-court swing, a hard stop for a player who began the year by winning his first Australian Open title and became the youngest man to complete the career Grand Slam. What comes next is the part his team cannot skip: time, patience and a wrist that has to be ready before he can matter again.
