Carlos Alcaraz has tasted the benefits of a break from tennis and made a strong admission Wednesday.
Following his second-round US Open victory, the Spaniard, who took off four and a half months due to injury earlier this year, said he will be taking more time off moving forward.
“I took more than I wanted, to be honest, but you know, seeing how tight is the calendar, obviously I don’t want to have this break because (of) an injury,” he said to reporters. “But 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 adding more important tournaments. You know, in a way they making us to 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.”
The tennis calendar is arguably the most demanding of any sport.
In 2024, the professional tennis season concluded Dec. 22 when Joao Fonseca took home the ATP Next Gen Finals title over Learner Tien in Saudi Arabia.
The 2025 season began Dec. 27 — five days later — for the United Cup in Australia as a tune-up before the Australian Open.
Players could take off those couple of days or weeks in December in the break between seasons if they wanted to, skipping out on some of the latter tournaments.
However, many never do due to the curious quick turnaround.
The ATP has not addressed the issue.
Alcaraz, who was out with a wrist injury since April, is taking the power into his own hands after observing some of the benefits of a break since coming back to the US Open for his first competitive match play since the time away.
The 23-year-old and seven-time Grand Slam champion has performed well in Queens and said he feels healthy enough to give it his all as he attempts to defend his title.
Despite dropping the first set against Jaime Faria on Wednesday, Alcaraz bounced back and swiftly won the next three sets 4-6, 6-0, 6-3, 6-2.
Alcaraz’s statement could be one that other tennis players follow, including his friend and rival Jannik Sinner, who withdrew from the hard court Grand Slam due to a knee injury after a lot of time on the court throughout the summer.
Other players who have been often injured this year include Arthur Fils, Casper Ruud, Taylor Fritz and Fonseca.
Alcaraz is set to play Y.B. Wu in the third round Friday.
