![\"Carlos](\"https:\/\/manilatimes.net\/manilatimes\/uploads\/images\/2026\/08\/29\/1194950.jpg\")
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\n Carlos Alcaraz AFP PHOTO\n <\/p>\n
The Spaniard has drawn confidence from grueling practice sessions ahead of the Grand Slam, he told reporters at a pretournament media day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to come here to practice with these guys to feel the competition once again, and this is really testing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m feeling great and … that helped me a lot to know right now that it\u2019s all in my head,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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By signing up with an email address, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the Terms of Service<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Alcaraz, 23, the youngest player to win the career Grand Slam after triumphing in Australia in January, hasn\u2019t played singles since April 16, withdrawing from the Barcelona Open with a right wrist injury and subsequently skipping both the French Open and Wimbledon.<\/p>\n Alcaraz, who partnered Serena Williams in the US Open\u2019s mixed doubles event on Tuesday, told reporters on Friday that his coaching and support team had complete confidence that he was ready to go.<\/p>\n \u201cI gotta trust my people that tell me that it\u2019s gonna be fine. So I just have to go 100 percent,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I\u2019m just trying to to like stay away … from that fear.\u201d<\/p>\n Alcaraz\u00a0will open his defense against Russian veteran Roman Safiullin.<\/p>\n Should he clear that and the subsequent two matches, he could face a potential fourth-round match with Tommy Paul or Alexander Bublik, with potentially either Ben Shelton or Arthur Fils looming in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n The Spanish star would normally be an automatic favorite to win again in New York. But the injury has made him more of a question mark in 2026.<\/p>\n Other top players are not discounting\u00a0Alcaraz\u2019s chances.<\/p>\n \u201cI expect him to be maybe a bit rusty the first or second match, but once he gets through that, I think he\u2019s going to be a contender for sure here,\u201d said second-ranked Alexander Zverev, the top seed due to the withdrawal of world No. 1 Jannik Sinner.<\/p>\n Coming back after a layoff at a Grand Slam where men play three out of five sets is \u201cnot necessarily easy to do,\u201d said American Taylor Fritz, the ninth seed.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 Carlos\u00a0Alcaraz\u00a0said on Friday (Saturday in Manila) he feels at \u201c100 percent\u201d ahead of his defense…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[410,243,256,419,271,207,366,219,2482,10699,220,2406,122,221,452,463,389],"class_list":["post-60023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-french-open","tag-alexander-bublik","tag-alexander-zverev","tag-arthur-fils","tag-ben-shelton","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-french-open","tag-grand-slam","tag-jannik-sinner","tag-mixed-doubles","tag-practice-sessions","tag-roland-garros","tag-roman-safiullin","tag-serena-williams","tag-taylor-fritz","tag-tommy-paul","tag-us-open","tag-wrist-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}