Why Carlos Alcaraz should not take French Open risk after Del Potro, Nadal, Thiem, Kyrgios wrist woes

Carlos Alcaraz is in a race against time to be fit for the French Open but plenty of examples from tennis history should tell the Spaniard not to rush anything.

For a young athlete, it can often seem as if there is no time like the present. Longevity in sport is no guarantee, nor is staying at the top of the game, and so if you are presented with a chance to win a Grand Slam, you should not let it pass so easily.

That may well be one of the thoughts currently in the mind of Alcaraz who at 22 years of age and one of the two best players in the world, stands a chance at breaking into the GOAT conversation before his career is up.

While talk of that title will follow him for all the time he is on the court, the immediate future is a French Open to be defended and the chance to become just the third player to win the tournament in three successive seasons in the Open Era.

He may well be tempted then to push through the pain of a wrist injury that currently has him wearing a splint. According to the Spanish TV show El Partido de COPE, Alcaraz has an inflamed tendon sheath and is waiting on the results of an ultrasound before deciding on a potential return date.

But if you are Alcaraz and his team, you may well look at the French Open coming next month and decide playing before the wrist is fully healed is a sacrifice worth taking but there are countless lessons for the Spaniard to learn from tennis’ history.

One of the most notable is Juan Martín del Potro.

It would not be unfair to suggest that the Argentine had the talent and potential to crack into tennis’ Big Three, he may have even rivalled Novak Djokovic during the mid 2010s, but his career was disrupted by persistent wrist injuries.

The injury first occurred after he won the US Open in 2009 but he opted to push through the pain to play the 2010 Australian Open. That preceded a number of missed tournaments before surgery to fix the issue.

In 2014, he had wrist pain once again, this time in his left wrist, which had a huge technical impact on his game as he was forced to move away from the two-handed backhand and also sliced the ball far more than he had done previously.

To his credit, del Potro did return to the top 3 and reached the US Open final in 2018 but his career is a case study in how wrist injuries can affect even the brightest talents.

Del Potro is not the only example. While they were not as persistent nor as hampering as del Potro’s, Nadal suffered his fair share of wrist issues.

The most notable one came in 2016 which he sustained during the Madrid Open. Nadal opted to play in the French Open and reached the third round but withdrew and suggested that while his wrist was “not broken”, it would soon be if he kept playing. That also kept him out of Wimbledon.

A more recent example comes with Dominic Thiem who suffered a more extreme version of what Alcaraz currently has.

During a 2021 match, Thiem suffered a detachment of the posterior sheath which never really healed and ultimately brought his early retirement.

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After he retired, the 2020 US Open winner, who is still just 32, suggested that tennis was not set up in a way to protect the players.

“I think the way we do the sport, it’s not healthy, and at one point, one part or more parts of the body break down,” he told the Guardian. “You can see it with almost every player, there is no player who comes injury free through their career. That’s just the way of professional sport.

Nick Kyrgios is another example of a player being forced off the court for an extended period due to a wrist injury.

The Australian picked up the career-threatening injury at the 2022 US Open and required reconstructive surgery but even then it was a long road back to the court.

Kyrgios described it was a “15 per cent miracle chance” he would be back at the highest level but his career still continues to be disrupted. A wildcard entry for the ATP 500 tournament in Halle will be his first competitive outing since the Brisbane International at the start of the year.

All of these then should serve as a warning to Alcaraz that a wrist injury can have far wider and longer repercussions than some initial discomfort. A chance for history then should be ignored with the belief that a sacrifice made today will be rewarded tomorrow.

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