As far as potential bummers for this tennis season go, Alcaraz’s announcement has to be at the very top of the list. He and Sinner appeared perfectly poised to duel through Madrid and Rome, with the culmination and coronation sure to be staged in Paris.
Alcaraz won 16 straight matches, and the Australian Open, to start the year. Sinner responded by winning 18 (and counting) straight matches, and the Sunshine Double in Indian Wells and Miami. At the season’s first clay Masters 1000 in Monte Carlo, they met in the final, and Sinner won a tough and intriguing two-setter. That match was good, but it left room for much more drama, and a likely Alcaraz response, to come.
Alcaraz’s announcement highlights how fragile everything—rivalries, careers, hopes for classic matches—can be in tennis. In team sports, if there’s an injury to a player, or even three players, the team doesn’t stop playing. In tennis, when Alcaraz gets hurt during the clay season, the season as we knew it, or planned it, suddenly ceases to exist.
