Seven-time Grand Slam champion and arguably the most gifted clay-court player of his generation, Carlos Alcaraz, will not be walking onto Court Philippe-Chatrier this fortnight, and his absence is somehow louder than his presence would have been.
A right wrist injury sustained during his opening match at the Barcelona Open on April 14 forced him to withdraw, ending a clay season that hadn’t really started before it was over. The reverberations of his withdrawal will also be felt at Wimbledon, with the Spaniard also pulling out of the grass-court swing due to the same injury.
But the manner of his triumph in last year’s final even makes his absence from Paris feel particularly dramatic. Having looked to be down amongst the dead men, the Spaniard sensationally saved three championship points against his great rival Jannik Sinner in a marathon clash that ultimately stretched over five and a half hours before prevailing in a match already considered part of tournament folklore.
It is a different French Open without Carlos Alcaraz
The heir apparent to Rafael Nadal’s red clay kingdom was supposed to be back to defend it; instead, he posted on Instagram from Madrid. “This is a difficult time for me, but I am sure we will come out of it stronger.”
The ripple effects are enormous, and they run in every direction.
For Sinner, the path clears in a way that feels almost unfair. The one player who might have beaten him on clay this year, who last year snatched the trophy away in the most dramatic fashion, is simply not there.
Alcaraz was aiming for a third straight title, and with Sinner now the overwhelming favourite, much of the tournament narrative has shifted toward who can challenge the world #1, rather than who can stop a two-man duel.
For Novak Djokovic, it is a door swinging open. Alcaraz is expected to drop around 3,000 ATP ranking points from his absence, shaking up the top of the rankings and, more importantly, removing the player whose physical dominance has been beyond the ageing Djokovic’s ability to challenge – at least in best-of-five set matches.
For the rest of the field, Alexander Zverev, Arthur Fils, Casper Ruud, Daniil Medvedev, and the rest of the emerging generation, it is an opportunity that comes around once in a career, if ever. Though the scale of that opportunity is tempered by the reality that Sinner right now does not look like a manageable proposition for anyone on earth – even ALcaraz.
Alcaraz will watch from somewhere and will no doubt be desperate to return to the action as soon as possible, though it will likely be July before we see him back on the court. The extent of this injury is troubling and he would not be the first burgeoning great to be undone by a wrist unable to bear the strain. Equally, he is just 22 years old and has access to the best medical care money can buy. The likelihood is that his wrist will heal; and he will back to his best before the end of the season.
But this French Open, the one that could have been a third consecutive crown, the one where a Sinner-Alcaraz final rematch had felt inevitable, will happen without him, and in his absence, the tournament that usually writes the same story with two names at the top has been handed a genuinely blank page.
What gets written on it over the next two weeks is anybody’s guess. And that, for the first time in a while, is exactly what makes it unmissable.
Main photo credit: Susan Mullane-Imagn Images
