Carlos Alcaraz Triumphs in US Open Return After Injury
Carlos Alcaraz walked back into Arthur Ashe Stadium on Monday night not as a curiosity or a comeback story, but as the defending US Open champion who had been kept away from his stage for 139 days.
The wait ended with a straight-sets win and a roar.
The 23-year-old Spaniard, returning from a wrist injury that sidelined him for just over four months, swept past Russia’s Roman Safiullin 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, and did it with all the theatre that New York has come to expect from him.
The show returns to Ashe
Compression sleeve on his right arm, trademark swagger intact, Alcaraz bounded into his title defence as if he had never been away. The forehand, that violent, whippy lash that has already defined a generation, did the bulk of the damage, accounting for most of his 28 winners.
If there were any doubts about how he felt, they didn’t come from him.
“I missed the crowd, the energy, the competition – I missed everything,” he said on court, grinning as if the last four months had been a bad dream finally shaken off. “I’m just really, really happy that I was able to compete again.”
From the first game, every clean strike came with a clenched fist and a shout of “vamos” towards his team. He smiled between points, played to the stands, and at one changeover casually sang along to Michael Jackson. This was not a man tiptoeing his way back; this was a performer reclaiming his stage.
When he finished a brutal rally in his final service game with a feathered drop shot, he froze for a heartbeat, then lifted his fist to the sky, cupped his ear and demanded more noise. The Arthur Ashe crowd obliged. They always do for a showman who gives them something to believe in.
On BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra, former Wimbledon champion Pat Cash noted how “every little win” seemed to be celebrated by Alcaraz. It showed. Every point felt like a small victory in a bigger personal battle.
“What I really want to do is enjoy every time that I’m going to walk into the court, feeling the energy from the people,” Alcaraz said. “That’s what I’m going do this tournament. The results, it’s going to come after all. That’s why I enjoyed so much today, and it wasn’t a surprise for me, because I came here to enjoy.”
Rust, risk and reality
For all the joy, this was still a comeback match. The numbers told that story too.
The forehand sparkled. The touch on the drop shot was still outrageous. But the serve? That was the one piece of the arsenal that didn’t quite fit.
Alcaraz finished with just two aces and five double faults. He landed 68% of his first serves and won 66% of those points, solid figures on paper, but the usual sting was missing. He knew it.
“The serve is the shot I was struggling [with] the most,” he admitted, explaining that some of the slower deliveries were by design, a tactical wrinkle to unsettle Safiullin. “I’m going try to serve better. The point is going to try to serve normal, but it’s a shot that I just always struggle [with]. But it will be back, for sure.”
Physically, he looked sharp enough, chasing down balls and stretching rallies without any obvious discomfort. The real questions had come earlier, in his own head.
“There were some doubts in the match, I’m not going to lie,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about ‘am I going to last the best of five, am I going to last playing four sets, five sets?’”
He did not need to go beyond three on opening night, but he was honest about what lies ahead.
“I need more matches under the belt to get again into the rhythm of the tournament. I’m pretty sure I’m going to get better and better every day.”
A draw quietly opening up
Safiullin, ranked 99 in the world, was a manageable first hurdle. The next one, Portugal’s Jaime Faria, sits at 72 in the rankings and will not intimidate a player of Alcaraz’s stature. The real story, though, is what’s happening around him.
The men’s draw has already cracked open.
World number one Jannik Sinner is out of the tournament entirely with a knee issue. Novak Djokovic, chasing yet another slice of history, crashed out in a stunning first-round defeat to Argentina’s Mariano Navone on Sunday. French Open champion and top seed Alexander Zverev is parked on the other side of the draw; as second seed, Alcaraz cannot see him before the final.
The danger from outside the usual giants has thinned too. French 10th seed Arthur Fils, fresh from winning the Cincinnati Masters and tipped by many as a dark horse in New York, fell to Stefanos Tsitsipas earlier on Monday. That leaves American Ben Shelton as the only top-10 player Alcaraz can face before the semi-finals, a potential quarter-final clash that would light up the night sessions.
For a defending champion returning from injury, this is as inviting a path as he could reasonably hope for. But Alcaraz is not talking about pathways or projections. Not yet. He is talking about noise, joy, rhythm.
On Monday night, the US Open got its entertainer back. The draw may be shifting, the hierarchy may be wobbling, but one question now hangs over Flushing Meadows:
If this is Alcaraz still searching for his top gear, what happens when he finds it?
