Carlos Alcaraz has withdrawn from the Barcelona Open, the ATP 500 tournament, due to wrist pain, the Spaniard has just confirmed. He suffered pain in his wrist during Tuesday's match against Otto Virtanen, asked for medical time-out between the first and second sets, but ended up winning 6-4, 6-2. However, he cancelled today's training, and announced his retirement in a press conference at 17:30 CEST.
This means that Thomas Machac, whom he was scheduled to play in round of 16 on Thursday, automatically qualifies for quarter-finals, and would face Andrey Rublev or Lorenzo Sonego on Friday.
This means that Alcaraz won't be able to recover the World No. 1 title next week. In fact, he will lose most of the 330 points he won by reaching the final last year and the gap with Jannik Sinner will increase, although neither will be defending points when they participate in the Madrid Open next week... if they participate, of course. Alcaraz has not said whether he will be in Madrid or not, but that will depend on the evolution of his wrist.
