Carlos Alcaraz to miss French Open with ongoing right wrist injury

Carlos Alcaraz will miss the French Open, leaving Paris without its two-time defending champion and one of the men’s field’s defining stars. The Spaniard won Roland-Garros in 2024 and 2025, and his withdrawal turns this year’s tournament from a title defense into a reshaped chase for the rest of the clay-court contenders.

Alcaraz’s decision followed a bruising stretch on the spring schedule. He pulled out of the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell on April 15 after undergoing a test on his right wrist, then also withdrew from the Mutua Madrid Open because of the same injury. Alcaraz said the problem was “slightly more serious” than expected and that he needed to listen to his body. The ATP Tour said he was World No. 2 when he withdrew from Madrid and later noted that he could not give a precise timetable for his return.

That uncertainty matters because Alcaraz had already been one of the major clay-court storylines of the season. He reached the final of the Monte-Carlo Masters in 2026 before losing to Jannik Sinner, setting up a rivalry arc that fans expected to carry into Paris. With Alcaraz sidelined, that potential rematch at Roland-Garros disappears, and the bracket loses the player who had most consistently matched the tour’s biggest names on clay.

The absence also lands at a moment when tennis’s packed calendar is drawing sharper attention. Alcaraz moved from Monte-Carlo to Barcelona, then Madrid, before the clay season’s biggest event in Paris, a run that leaves little margin for a wrist injury to settle. He said at the Laureus World Sports Awards on April 20 that setbacks were part of professional sport and that he hoped to be back on court very soon. He also said he was beginning recovery with his team, but he could not say exactly when he would return.

For Roland-Garros, the loss is immediate and far-reaching. The tournament will still have depth, but it will not have the reigning champion who had made the title his own, and the path to the men’s trophy in Paris has opened in a way few expected a week ago.