Tennis superstar Carlos Alcaraz announced some major news amid his ongoing recovery from a right wrist injury.
“My recovery is going well and I feel much better, but unfortunately I’m still not ready to be able to play, and that’s why I have to withdraw from the grass-court swing at Queen’s and Wimbledon,” Alcaraz, 22, wrote in a statement via social media on Tuesday, May 19.
He added, “They are two really special tournaments for me and I’ll miss them a lot. We keep working to return as soon as possible!”
The main draw of the 2026 Wimbledon tournament begins on June 29.
Alcaraz withdrew from the Barcelona Open on April 15 after suffering an injury during his first-round match against Otto Virtanen.
“I felt my wrist give out on a return during the match,” Alcaraz told reporters at the time. “After the tests, we saw that it’s a more serious injury than any of us expected, and I have to listen to my body so it doesn’t affect me in the future.”
He added, “I have to go home to start my recovery as soon as possible with my team – the doctors, and the physical therapist — and get, or try to get, as healthy as possible as soon as possible for the tournaments I have coming up.”
Alcaraz was forced to withdraw from the 2026 French Open — where he is the two-time defending champion — on April 24. He also withdrew from the 2026 Italian Open, a clay prelude to the French Open at famed Roland-Garros. The main draw of the 2026 French Open begins on Sunday, May 24.
“After the results of the tests carried out today, we have decided that the most prudent thing is to be cautious and not participate in Rome and Roland Garros, while we wait to assess the evolution to decide when we will return to the court,” Alcaraz said in a statement at the time. “It’s a complicated moment for me, but I’m sure we’ll come out stronger from here.”
Alcaraz is a two-time Wimbledon champion, taking home the title in 2023 and 2024. He was defeated by champion Jannik Sinner in the 2025 final. Together, Alcaraz and Sinner have combined to win the last nine Grand Slam titles in men’s singles.
The Athletic’s senior tennis writer, Charlie Eccleshare, called Alcaraz pulling out of Wimbledon “the news that pretty much everyone in tennis was dreading.”
“A wrist injury is the one that every tennis player dreads, and so the hope is that Alcaraz is simply being sensible and not rushing his comeback,” Eccleshare wrote on Tuesday. “But inevitably there will be widespread concern about when Alcaraz will be able to return, and how quickly he’ll be able to get back to the level that made him a seven-time Grand Slam champion before his 23rd birthday.”
There is hope Alcaraz will be ready for the 2026 US Open, which begins on August 30.
