Carlos Alcaraz Returns at the US Open After Four Months Out — Wrist Healed, Mind Still Catching Up

Carlos Alcaraz is back at the US Open, seeded second, four months after a wrist injury shut down his 2026 season. The 2022 and 2025 champion at Flushing Meadows returns to defend his title carrying not just a compression sleeve on his playing arm but a mental battle he says was harder than the physical one (BBC Sport).

The injury was tenosynovitis — inflammation of the sheath protecting a tendon on the inside of his right wrist. It first surfaced in April, when Alcaraz withdrew from the Mutua Madrid Open (ATP Tour). Days later, he pulled out of Rome and Roland Garros, ending his clay season (ATP Tour). At the time, AP reported that medical tests would decide whether he could play the French Open, which was then about a month away (AP News). He could not.

Wimbledon went too. Alcaraz withdrew from Queen's Club and the All England Club on May 19, when his 2026 record stood at 22-3 (ATP Tour). A planned comeback in Cincinnati was scrapped in early August (ATP Tour). The US Open became the landing point — not by design, but by necessity.

Alcaraz has been honest about that. He told reporters the US Open is "not the best time" for him to return, but that he is ready to play anyway (Tennis Majors). The hardest part of recovery, he said, was not the rehab. It was the intrusive thoughts — the mental noise that creeps in when a player cannot trust their own body.

That noise has not gone quiet. Alcaraz said he is still playing a mental game to stop himself worrying about the wrist during points (Yahoo Sports). He continues to wear the compression sleeve as protection. On Friday, he said his team believes he is ready for five-set matches — the grueling best-of-five format used at Grand Slams, where a single match can last four or five hours — and that he is trying to stay away from fear (BBC Sport).

The seeding committee did not punish him for the layoff. Seeded second, Alcaraz avoids the very top of the draw — a small but real advantage in a tournament where the early rounds are designed to protect higher-ranked players from meeting each other.

For a player who went 22-3 before the injury stopped him, the game is plainly still there. The question is whether the wrist, and the mind around it, can hold for seven matches across a fortnight. Alcaraz has won this tournament twice. He knows what it demands. He just has not been able to test the answer in four months.

Flushing Meadows will ask it of him from the first ball.