World number two Carlos Alcaraz retired from the Rio Open on Tuesday after suffering a right ankle injury early in his opening match against Brazilian Thiago Monteiro.
Alcaraz, the top seed in the singles draw, was facing Brazilian wild card Thiago Monteiro in the first round. During the first game, Alcaraz returned a serve and began running laterally back to the middle of the court.
Monteiro aimed his next shot behind Alcaraz, and when the Spaniard tried to stop on a dime, his ankle rolled and he fell to the ground.
“These things happen, even more so on clay, it was not a problem of the court, I got injured as I switched direction. That happens in this kind of surface,” Alcaraz said.
“I came back to the game to see whether I could carry on or not. I spoke to the physio on the court and we decided together I should continue to see if this would get better.
“It didn’t happen, so we chose to be careful and abandon due to precaution,” he said.
The retirement at 1-1 meant Monteiro advanced to the second round where he will face his compatriot Felipe Meligeni Alves for a place in the quarterfinals.
The Spanish player said his doctors said the injury was not serious but he does feel pain when he walks and will have medical scans on Wednesday.
Monteiro helped Alcaraz return to the bench, where he got his ankle taped. Alcaraz attempted to continue the match, winning the first game but being broken in the second.
“This is so strange,” Monteiro said in a post-match press conference. “It was the second point of the match. On the court it didn’t look so serious, but then I saw it in the big screen and it was a bad twist. Now I can only cheer for him to recover. He is a star, a dominant one in the new generation.”
Alcaraz, won the Rio Open in 2022 and finished runner-up last year when he lost the final to Great Britain’s Cameron Norrie.
The 20-year-old, who won the Argentina Open title in 2023, was eliminated by Chile’s Nicols Jarry in the semifinals in Buenos Aires.
The 2022 U.S. Open winner and 2023 Wimbledon champion is one of the biggest stars in men’s tennis, and it remains to be seen if his ankle injury will be severe enough to sideline him for any length of time.
