Carlos Alcaraz has withdrawn from the Cincinnati Open, extending an absence that has now run past four months and leaving the defending US Open champion without a competitive match before he is scheduled to defend his title in New York at the end of the month.
Tournament organizers announced the withdrawal Tuesday night, nine days before the main draw begins Aug. 13. Alcaraz has not played since the Barcelona Open in April, where he sustained the right wrist injury — tenosynovitis, an inflammation of the sheath that surrounds the tendon — that has shaped the rest of his season.
“We know Carlos is doing everything he can to get back to playing tournaments as soon as possible,” tournament director Bob Moran said in a statement. “We wish him the best with his recovery and look forward to welcoming him back to Cincinnati in the future.” The decision ends three weeks in which a return had looked close. Alcaraz had been listed in the Cincinnati singles field since mid-July, resumed outdoor hitting in Murcia at the end of the month and was the subject of reporting that the wrist had fully healed.
Neither he nor his team ever confirmed he would play, and no statement from either has followed the tournament’s announcement. What prompted the withdrawal has not been explained, and whether there was a setback in the last two weeks or simply not enough runway between practice and match play is not yet established.
The competitive cost is easier to measure. Alcaraz won Cincinnati last year and will drop 1,000 ranking points when the tournament ends. He is currently No. 2 in the PIF ATP Rankings, a position he reclaimed during his layoff rather than on court, and the coming weeks will test it. The larger number sits behind it: he has 2,000 points to defend at the US Open, where the main draw begins Aug. 30.
Seedings there are set by the rankings published Aug. 24, with the draw ceremony Aug. 27 — meaning the ranking Alcaraz carries into New York will be determined entirely by points falling off, not points added. Alcaraz remains on the US Open entry list. That is a procedural fact rather than a commitment, and nothing from his camp indicates a decision has been made.
If he does play, he will do so having last struck a competitive ball at a clay-court event in April, walking into best-of-five tennis with no hard-court match preparation at all. He has done a version of this before — his 2026 season opened with the Australian Open title that completed his career Grand Slam, and he reached the Monte Carlo final in April — but never after an absence of this length.
The Cincinnati field absorbs the loss more easily than it might have. Jannik Sinner skipped the Canadian Open to arrive in Ohio fresh, and Novak Djokovic did the same, returning to the tournament for the first time since his 2023 title. Alexander Zverev and Taylor Fritz are also in a draw that already carried the strongest men’s field of the summer. What Alcaraz’s absence guarantees is a new champion, and one fewer obstacle in the top half of the bracket for a group of players who have spent the season waiting for exactly that opening.
His absence has already reshaped the year. Zverev won his maiden major at Roland Garros in Alcaraz’s absence. Sinner defended Wimbledon in a draw missing the man who beat him in the 2026 Australian Open final. Three different men have won the season’s first three majors, an outcome that would have been difficult to imagine in January, when Alcaraz opened the year by beating Djokovic in Melbourne.
For now, the unfortunate news is that Alcaraz will not play Cincinnati. He is entered at the US Open and has not yet withdrawn. No return date has been set by the player or his team, and the language coming out of Ohio on Tuesday night — recovery, as soon as possible, in the future — carried no timeline at all. The next hard checkpoint is Aug. 24, when the seeding rankings publish, and Aug. 27, when the draw is made. Whether his name is in it will be the only answer that matters.
