NEW YORK — The week leading up to the US Open is the ultimate tennis gossip-fest. And from party to party, corporate event to corporate event, no topic was gabbed about more than the state of Carlos Alcaraz’s right wrist.
Missing from the tour for 4 1/2 months, costing him a chance to add to his major total this summer after he completed the career Grand Slam in Australia, Alcaraz made the decision to return for the US Open with no matches under his belt since his wrist flared up on April 14.
It was immediately a magnet for speculation.
Was he really healthy and ready to compete? Was he under sponsor pressure to come to New York because of a long-planned Nike collaboration with rapper Travis Scott? Why were his serve speeds so pedestrian in the mixed doubles event with Serena Williams?
But the moment Alcaraz took the court Monday afternoon at Arthur Ashe Stadium, only the truth mattered. And the truth is that the defending US Open champion is still The Truth.
For someone who hadn’t played an official match in 139 days, Alcaraz’s 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 victory over Roman Safiullin was probably the last thing everyone else in the field wanted to see. If he’s this good already, what kind of form is he going to be in a little less than two weeks from now?
“The level of tennis is gonna be better for sure,” Alcaraz said in his on-court interview. “I’m happy with the level I played. Really proud about it, but I need more matches under the belt. I need to get again in the rhythm of the tournaments and I’m pretty sure I’m going to get better and better after every day. The most I’m proud of is mentally. I was able to deal with everything, with the nerves, the doubts in my head and keep it going.”
Carlos Alcaraz and Travis Scott on Day Two of the 2026 US Open at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on Monday, August 31, 2026 in Flushing, NY.
Alcaraz will certainly go back over what happened Monday and find moments where he didn’t choose the right shot or didn’t execute up to his high standards. But more important was that all the hallmarks of Alcaraz’s game showed up: His side-to-side movement, his touch at the net, some swaggy winners from impossible positions and a bevy of belted forehands that suggest the wrist is strong and sturdy after all.
For most players, a comeback like that after a long injury wouldn’t be physically possible, especially at a Grand Slam playing in a best-of-five set format. For Alcaraz, it somehow looked routine — even if it didn’t feel that way.
“It was a difficult day for me, to be honest, but at the same time a really beautiful one,” he said. “Starting the day I was really, really nervous, thinking, ‘I’m gonna compete again.’ More nerves than usual.”
Alcaraz was right to have some doubts, particularly against an opponent like Safiullin. Though ranked only No. 99 in the world, he has a heavy game and a top level that can be dangerous for top players. If Alcaraz was overly rusty, Safiullin was one of the few potential first-round matchups that could have been complicated.
As it turned out, the only time Alcaraz even looked troubled at all was early in the second set when Safiullin broke his serve. But it didn’t take long for Alcaraz to get that back. And while his serve speeds were indeed lower than usual — he delivered some in the 120-mph range, but was more often a couple notches lower than that — Alcaraz said his wrist was pain-free and that slower serving was a tactical choice due to the opponent.
“I felt great,” he said. “I don’t know how it looked from the outside. But my feeling was that I was hitting normal. I was playing normal in my style and the arm, the wrist, everything felt great. So I’m still taking care of it obviously, but it’s pain-free finally.”
Alcaraz could not pinpoint the exact moment the wrist was injured but said it had not been a problem before he played Otto Virtanen in his first match in Barcelona. He withdrew from the tournament after beating Virtanen citing general inflammation in his tendon sheath.
Wrist injuries are always scary for tennis players. In the last decade, Juan Martin del Potro and Dominic Thiem are two examples of players who were never quite the same after having wrist issues. Even with advances in modern medicine, it is not an area of the body you want to do anything surgical with unless absolutely necessary.
As painful as it was to miss the French Open and Wimbledon, tournaments he’s won twice each, Alcaraz was fortunate that his injury required only rest.
In deciding to play the US Open, Alcaraz and his medical team determined that he had rested enough. The way he played Monday suggests that if Alcaraz doesn’t win the title here, it won’t be because the injury is still bothering him.
“My goal here is to compete, to enjoy, and let’s see how my body is gonna react after the matches,” he said. “I don’t know how far I’m gonna go in the tournament. I didn’t know if I was going to lose this one, if I’m making the second round, the final. I don’t know. But what I definitely want to do is to enjoy every time that I’m gonna walk onto the court, feeling the energy from the people, feel the competition. The results is gonna come, so that’s why I enjoyed so much today.”
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