Carlos Alcaraz schedule: The three tournaments he is considering as potential comeback event
Carlos Alcaraz and his team have been praised for adopting a cautious approach with his recovery from injury, but he now appears to be just a few weeks away from making a return to tennis.
The seven-time Grand Slam winner has been sidelined since mid-April after he picked up a wrist injury during his first-round win at the Barcelona Open.
Alcaraz was initially only expected to miss the remainder of the clay-court season, including his title defence at Roland Garros, but further tests found the injury to be a lot more serious and he was forced to withdraw from the Queen’s Club Championship and Wimbledon.
The world No 2 wore a cast for the first few weeks and slowly returned to training, but used only his non-playing left hand to hit shots. However, there was a big update over the weekend as he posted a video on social media using his right hand to play forehand shots.
It immediately sparked excitement among tennis fans about his return edging closer, but the Tennis Channel’s Prakash Amritraj warned that it is important to look at the long-term picture.
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“I think you have to [agree with Alcaraz and his team’s cautious approach], especially for someone like Carlos who we know is going to have a certain type of career if he continues. He has already won seven Grand Slams, he has won virtually everything you possibly imagine at this age,” he said.
“So I applaud it, it’s gotta be absolutely brutal because you got to think that even him with his confidence with what he has achieved with 80% [he will think] ‘I can go out there and beat just about everyone’ so I think he is looking long-term, which is what he needs to do.
“We want to see him play for 10, 15 years, maybe even more, so I think he is doing the right thing. I just hope he gets a crack with some matches under his belt before [the US Open in] New York.”
Wimbledon, of course, is the last grass-court tournament of the year on the calendar before there is a short two-week clay-court swing with events in Sweden, Switzerland, Croatia, Austria and Portugal.
But the focus will very much be on the North American hard-court swing that gets underway on 27 July with the ATP 500 Washington Open in the United States and the ATP 250 Los Cabos Open in Mexico.
According to Spanish journalist Javier de Diego, Alcaraz and his team are considering those two tournaments as possible comeback events, but it still depends on how his recovery over the next few weeks.
If the 23-year-old is not fully fit, then they could push his return back by another week with the Canadian Open, which runs from 3-10 August, his next best bet.
The ATP Masters 1000 Cincinnati Open follows the Canadian Open before the US Open gets underway on 31 August with Alcaraz the defending champion.
