Leading injury prevention and athlete welfare expert Stephen Smith has spoken to Tennis365 about the “risk” of Carlos Alcaraz playing the 2026 US Open following his wrist injury.
Alcaraz is the reigning US Open champion, having defeated his biggest rival, Jannik Sinner, in the 2025 final to secure his second crown at the New York major.
The Spanish icon started the 2026 season by capturing his maiden Australian Open title, which saw him become the youngest man in tennis history to complete the career Grand Slam.
The 23-year-old did not play at the last two majors — Roland Garros and Wimbledon — due to a right wrist injury that has kept him out of action since April.
Alcaraz remains on the entry list for the US Open, which will begin on 30 August, but his participation is far from certain after he pulled out of the Cincinnati Masters.
The seven-time Grand Slam champion is not, therefore, scheduled to play a warmup event before the US Open. Alcaraz could take a wildcard for the ATP 250 event in Winston-Salem, although this feels unlikely.
Returning from over four months out with a challenging injury to play at Flushing Meadows seems like a difficult ask, and many expect Alcaraz to delay his comeback further.
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Smith, who is the founder and CEO of Kitman Labs — the world’s leading sports science and performance intelligence company — revealed he would be “shocked” if Alcaraz played the US Open.
“I think the US Open compounds almost every welfare risk at once — extreme heat and humidity in New York, hardest surface in the game, best-of-five matches that can go four or five hours,” said Smith in an exclusive interview with Tennis365.
“For a guy that’s been off for a significant period of time, as well, you would expect that he probably would play more sets than he normally would given the talent he has.
“For anyone managing some sort of soft tissue or bone issue, the court surface offers the least protection of any of the majors.
“Given how patient they’ve been, I would be shocked to see him at the US Open.
“If you’re taking that patient approach and you’re progressively building, why throw somebody back in to the hardest thing they might do all year? Surely, you want that to be a progressive build.”
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