Carlos Alcaraz says he plans to take regular breaks from tennis in the future, even if that means skipping some tournaments. The Spaniard believes the packed ATP calendar is becoming too demanding and could leave players exhausted or injured.The defending US Open champion made the comments after fighting back from a first-set loss to beat Portugal’s Jaime Faria 4-6, 6-0, 6-3, 6-2 and reach the third round.Alcaraz recently returned after missing four months because of a wrist injury. While he did not want that long break, he now feels shorter, planned breaks could help him stay fresh.“I took more than I wanted, to be honest, but seeing how tight is the calendar, obviously I don’t want to have this break because an injury. But in the future, I’m going to take some breaks, some long breaks. Maybe not four months, but one month, two months, missing some tournaments, because it’s impossible to play them all,” Alcaraz said.
Alcaraz concerned about player workload
The 22-year-old feels players are being pushed to compete in too many major events, leaving little time to recover.“I think they adding more important tournaments. In a way they making us to play,” Alcaraz said. “You can decide your calendar, but there are some Masters 1000s, some Grand Slams, and we’ve been out playing 40 weeks if we got to play every mandatory tournament that the ATP required us to play,” he added.“So it’s impossible, and we are seeing a lot of players getting injured, a lot of players getting tired. If they don’t do anything about it, we are going to see even more in the future,” he warned.On court, Alcaraz recovered impressively after dropping the opening set. He won eight games in a row and broke Faria’s serve five times consecutively to take control.The Spaniard hit 43 winners and converted seven of 12 break points to complete the comeback. The victory extended his Grand Slam winning streak to 16 matches and improved his US Open record to 26-3.Alcaraz, a two-time US Open champion, is now 9-0 at the majors in 2026. He next faces China’s Wu Yibing.
