Defending US Open champion Carlos Alcaraz said he now believes he can retain the crown after entering the tournament under a cloud of injury.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz missed the French Open and Wimbledon as he recovered from a wrist injury and did not play any tournaments in the lead up to the final Grand Slam at the Flushing Meadows.<\/p>\n
Despite the lack of match practice, the second seed has been in imperial form this tournament and reasserted his status as the tournament favourite with a 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 win over American Tommy Paul.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the beginning of the tournament, I didn\u2019t have any expectations. I just came here to \u200bsee how my body \u200cwould react, especially my wrist, and above all to enjoy being back competing,\u201d Alcaraz told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter four really good matches, I now feel capable of winning the tournament. I still \u200chave the same expectations. I still have the same \u200bmentality of knowing that every time I step on court is a gift and it is a \u2060moment to enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alcaraz will next face American Ben Shelton in the final eight.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me it is \u2060still a gift to be able to compete once again and \u2060play another quarter-final here at the U.S. Open, so I\u2019m going to try to enjoy it and give \u200cmy best,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth players are going to be very difficult \u200bto play against,\u201d Alcaraz added.<\/p>\n
– Inputs from Reuters<\/p>\n
Published on Sep 07, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defending US Open champion Carlos Alcaraz said he now believes he can retain the crown after entering the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25883,21479,312,393,271,25885,1297,1965,775,12316,304,25886,3829,25884,25887],"class_list":["post-67606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-carlos-alcaraz","tag-alcaraz-confidence","tag-alcaraz-injury-comeback","tag-arthur-ashe-stadium","tag-atp-tour","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-carlos-alcaraz-vs-ben-shelton","tag-defending-champion","tag-flushing-meadows","tag-grand-slam-tennis","tag-sportstar-tennis","tag-tennis-news","tag-tommy-paul-win","tag-us-open-2026","tag-us-open-quarterfinal","tag-wrist-injury-recovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67606","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=67606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}