Carlos Alcaraz needed one hour and 51 minutes of controlled aggression to remove any lingering doubt about his wrist. The defending champion beat Tommy Paul 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 on Arthur Ashe Stadium on Sunday to reach the US Open quarter-finals, striking 33 winners to the American’s 18 and winning 23 of his 29 approaches to the net.
It was the most complete performance of Alcaraz’s comeback — his fourth match back at the first tournament he has played since April, when tenosynovitis in his right wrist ended his clay and grass seasons before they began.
Paul never had a foothold
The 20th seed was broken in the final game of the opening set, having spent the previous half hour defending. Paul saved break points in the second but could not manufacture one of his own in the third, and by the end Alcaraz had converted four of 14 chances and won 99 of the 173 points played.
The margins on the error column were identical — 32 apiece — but the winner count told the story. Alcaraz landed 67% of first serves and used the second-serve return to push Paul behind the baseline, then came forward relentlessly. One forehand down the line was clocked at 164km/h.
The head-to-head now reads 6-2 to Alcaraz, and the Spaniard has taken 14 consecutive sets from Paul. The American’s last set win in the rivalry came at Wimbledon in 2024.
“I just tried to be ready for the battle,” Alcaraz said. “I was trying to be aggressive all the time. I think I just played my game. I tried to play to my style.”
Asked whether he was back at full power, he answered simply: “I think so.”
Five months out, four matches back
Alcaraz won his first-round match at the Barcelona Open in mid-April and withdrew from the tournament immediately afterwards. The diagnosis — tenosynovitis in the wrist that generates his forehand — cost him the French Open, Queen’s Club, Wimbledon, the Canadian Open and Cincinnati. It was the longest layoff of his career, and it removed the defending champion from Roland Garros and the two-time champion from the All England Club.
The early evidence in New York was mixed. He dropped a set to Roman Safiullin, then needed four against qualifier Jaime Faria in a match he later described as a physical audit. Wu Yibing followed. Paul was the first opponent capable of properly interrogating the wrist under pressure, and the wrist did not flinch.
The numbers underline how little rust there is. Alcaraz has now won 11 straight matches at Flushing Meadows and 18 consecutive Grand Slam matches — a streak that runs back through last year’s title here and the Australian Open in January, where at 22 years and 272 days he became the youngest man to complete the career Grand Slam.
Every one of those 18 wins has come on hard courts, purely because injury removed the rest of the calendar.
“It shows how special this place is to me,” he said. “Except one year, since 2021 I make almost quarterfinal here. I’m just trying to enjoy my time on the court.”
A title defence with history attached
Alcaraz will play the winner of Ben Shelton and Stefanos Tsitsipas, who meet on Tuesday. Told of the pairing, he grinned: “I didn’t see the draw… oh my god.” Shelton, the eighth seed, has the biggest serve in the draw and a New York crowd that treats him as its own; Tsitsipas has never been past the fourth round here.
The prize at the end is significant. No man has retained the US Open since Roger Federer, whose run of five straight ended in 2008. Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Daniil Medvedev and Jannik Sinner have all won it in the years since without following up the next September.
- Seventh major title came at the Australian Open in January
- Season record of 26-3 despite missing four and a half months
- Fifth US Open quarter-final in five appearances since 2021
There is a longer-term consequence, too. Alcaraz has said he will build voluntary breaks into future seasons rather than risk another enforced one — an admission that the schedule, not the opponent, has been his hardest draw.
For now, the wrist holds, the forehand travels at 164km/h, and the man who has lost one Grand Slam match in 13 months is two wins from another final.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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