Laver Cup Team Europe captain Yannick Noah has admitted he feared Carlos Alcaraz might not play at this year’s Laver Cup, after he suggested he might skip some events to prioritise his health.

Alcaraz returned to action at the US Open after struggling to recover from a wrist injury sustained at the Barcelona Open back in April.

Many observers were surprised to see Alcaraz return in a best-of-five-set format at a Grand Slam, but he came through the test impressively as he reached the quarter-finals and only lost narrowly against Ben Shelton in a fifth-set tie-break.

During his exchange with the media in New York, Alcaraz made it clear that he is planning to take more breaks from tennis in a bid to ensure he is not sidelined by injuries again.

“I took more (time off) than I wanted, to be honest, but you know, seeing how tight the calendar is, obviously I don’t want to have this break because of an injury,” said Alcaraz in a US Open press conference.

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“In the future, I’m going to take some breaks, some long breaks. Maybe not four months, but one month, two months, missing some tournaments, because it’s impossible to play them all.

“I think they are adding more important tournaments. You know, in a way they are making us play. You can say ‘no’. You can keep one or two.

“You can decide your calendar, but there are some Masters 1000s, some Grand Slams, and we’ve been out playing 40 weeks if we got to play every mandatory tournament that the ATP, you know, required us to play.

“So it’s impossible, and we are seeing a lot of players getting injured, a lot of players getting tired. If they don’t do anything about it, we are going to see even more in the future.

“But for me, taking this break because of injury, it wasn’t that good, but you know, what I’m going to say is I’m going to take some breaks and miss some tournaments in the future, for sure.”

Those comments sparked concern for Noah, as he expressed his relief to have Alcaraz in his line-up for the clash with Andre Agassi’s Team World side.

“Well, it’s always a pleasure to have Carlos in the team,” said Noah on the Off Court with Greg Rusedski podcast.

“I love the kid. He’s a great kid and yes, I was worried, you know, during the tournament when the players started to talk about too many tournaments, too much travelling.

“Of course we have so many players, but I just wanted to spend some time with them. You know, I just you know, we have a revenge to take against Team World. And Carlos is so important to us:

“Really happy to have him on the team, not only because he can win some points, but also because he has very good positive energy.”

Alcaraz will not play singles on the opening day of the Laver Cup, with Noah opting to save his star man for days two and three, when the points on offer rise in the team event.

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How the Laver Cup works:

* The winning team must reach 13 points. If the competition is tied after 12 matches – a final overtime doubles match is played as a regular set with ad scoring and a tiebreak.

* The tournament consists of five sessions played over three days (Friday – Sunday).

* Each player competes in at least one singles match during the first two days.

* No player can play singles more than twice during the three days.

* At least four of the six players must play doubles. No doubles combination is played more than once, unless for the Decider on Day 3, if points are 12:12.

* Each match win is worth one point on Friday, two points on Saturday, and three points on Sunday.

* The winning team must reach 13 points.

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