{"id":97206,"date":"2026-02-02T11:31:39","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T16:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=97206"},"modified":"2026-02-02T11:31:39","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T16:31:39","slug":"carlos-alcaraz-withdraws-rotterdam-australian-open-schedule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/02\/02\/carlos-alcaraz-withdraws-rotterdam-australian-open-schedule\/","title":{"rendered":"Carlos Alcaraz Withdraws From Rotterdam as Post\u2013Australian Open Schedule Is Revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just over 24 hours after making tennis history by becoming the youngest men\u2019s player in the Open Era to complete the Career Grand Slam<\/a>, Carlos Alcaraz has announced that he will not compete at the ATP 500 Rotterdam Open this year.<\/p>\n

The World No. 1 has opted to withdraw from the indoor hard-court tournament, where he would have been the defending champion<\/a>, citing physical issues amid a quick turnaround following a physically gruelling Australian Open<\/a> campaign in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

Physical Toll Behind Rotterdam Withdrawal<\/h3>\n

The tournament\u2019s official social media channels released the following statement confirming Alcaraz\u2019s absence<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cCarlos Alcaraz won\u2019t defend his title in Rotterdam. The Australian Open champion concluded that after his exertions over the past two weeks, he needs more time to return to action. We wish Carlos a swift recovery.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

As a result, Alcaraz will lose 500 ranking points. However, this is unlikely to significantly impact his position at the top of the rankings, as he currently holds a lead of over 3,000 points over World No. 2 Jannik Sinner.<\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

What\u2019s Next for Alcaraz on Tour<\/h3>\n

Despite the withdrawal, the decision should help Alcaraz return to full physical strength ahead of a busy stretch on the calendar. Next on his schedule is a return to Doha for the ATP 500 event taking place from February 16\u201322, where he reached the quarterfinals last year.<\/p>\n

Following Doha, the Spaniard will compete in the Sunshine Double in March, which features the first two Masters 1000 events of the season at Indian Wells and Miami. He will then shift his focus to the clay-court swing, where he will enter most, if not all, tournaments as a favourite while defending a significant number of ranking points from last year\u2019s clay season.<\/p>\n

While fans will have to wait a little longer to see Alcaraz back on court, his return is not far away, with several high-profile events still ahead after a fortnight that produced unforgettable memories in Melbourne<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: Mike Frey-Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just over 24 hours after making tennis history by becoming the youngest men\u2019s player in the Open Era to complete the Career Grand Slam, Carlos Alcaraz has announced that he will not compete at the ATP 500 Rotterdam Open this year. The World No. 1 has opted to withdraw from the indoor hard-court tournament, where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5608,"featured_media":96866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2,9],"tags":[5729,5862,22],"class_list":["post-97206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-featured","category-news","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-jannik-sinner","tag-novak-djokovic"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5608"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97206"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97215,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97206\/revisions\/97215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}