US OPEN

August 31, 2026

Carlos Alcaraz

Press Conference

C. ALCARAZ/R.Safiullin

6-4, 6-4, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Carlos, congratulations.

Questions in English.

Q. Welcome back. It's one thing to talk about coming back, feeling good, the practices are going well, but it's another to actually get out there in a match situation. Just talk about what was going on in your head and how you were feeling.

CARLOS ALCARAZ: Well, I was trying to enjoy as much as I can and trying not to think about anything else, I would say. But it's easy to say; difficult to do. Once you step on the court, playing an official match, playing the first round, obviously you want to win.

You don't know what's going to happen in the match, after four months and a half almost, you don't know what's going to happen in your body, in your mind, everything. It's totally different.

But, you know, I just try to play, you know, one game at a time and try to feel good, to enjoy playing points, feeling the love from the people. Hopefully they enjoyed it.

Yeah, after the match, my body felt great. I'm just really, really happy that I made it finally.

Q. Last year after you won your matches, you would show us your golf swing. Have you been able to play or is the wrist injury that bad that you have to sit out the summer and golf also?

CARLOS ALCARAZ: Not this year. I wish I can play, but I would say I gotta find something different this year. No golf anymore, not yet. But yeah, that means every year is totally different feeling on everything, I'd say.

Q. Are you completely pain-free now in the wrist? Do you have to have it strapped before matches and things like that?

CARLOS ALCARAZ: Yeah, it's pain-free right now. I felt great. You know, I don't know how it looked from outside, but, you know, from inside, my feeling was that I was hitting normal. I was playing pretty normal, playing my style, and yeah, and the arm, the wrist, everything felt great.

I'm going to still taking care of it, obviously, these days and before the matches and everything, but, you know, I'm just really happy it's pain-free finally.

Q. Do you strap it up?

CARLOS ALCARAZ: Yeah, prevention is always good, I guess.

Q. Are you kind of a creature of habit? Now that you've won with the long hair, are you going to keep it long, like Samson, or are you going to go back to the short cut?

CARLOS ALCARAZ: In the tournament, I'm going to keep it long for sure. Then I don't know. But yeah, once I start with, you know, with a hairstyle or something, I just have to keep it until, you know, until the tournament is finished.

Q. I wanted to ask about your injury. Do you know more specifics of it? When did the wrist injury happen? When did you first start feeling the pain? We know you stopped in Barcelona. Do you know what specifically you hurt in your wrist in terms of ligaments or tendons or something?

CARLOS ALCARAZ: Say again, sorry?

Q. I just wanted more specifics about your injury. Do you know when it happened? Was there a moment when you felt a shot or something where it felt bad and if you know specific tendons or ligaments or part of the wrist?

CARLOS ALCARAZ: When I did it?

Q. If you felt something at that moment and specifics of what happened in the wrist.

CARLOS ALCARAZ: Not really. I just felt something, you know, on the wrist. I knew the point obviously, you know, where in the wrist. But nothing more than that.

It was more serious than we thought at the beginning, and that's it.

Q. Was it the match against Virtanen in Barcelona the first time?

CARLOS ALCARAZ: Yeah, the first time I felt it was in Barcelona, yeah.

Q. Can I ask you about sort of the feelings you had going onto the court? Were you nervous? You seemed really happy out there. Did you expect to have that kind of level of joy immediately? Did it make you feel even more how much you missed the game over the last four months?

CARLOS ALCARAZ: Well, it was a difficult day for me, to be honest, but at the same time, a really beautiful one. Starting the day really nervous. Really, really nervous. Thinking, like, I'm going to make it, I'm going to compete again.

Yeah, I had more nerves than usually, but just happy, because, you know, for me, my goal here is to compete, to enjoy, and let's see how my body's going to react after the matches, after the competition again.

I don't know how far I'm gonna go in the tournament. I didn't know if I was going to lose this one, if I'm going to make the second round, final. I don't know how far I'm going to go.

But what I just really want to do is enjoy every time that I'm gonna walk into the court feeling, you know, the energy from the people, feel the competition, walking up, I'm thinking, all right, it's match day. That's what I'm gonna do this tournament.

The results, it's going to come after all. So that's why I enjoyed so much today, and it wasn't a surprise for me, because I came here to enjoy.

Q. I wanted to ask, when you said earlier that you started the day really, really nervous, what do you mean by "really, really nervous"? Is it a fear? What happens to you? How do you overcome that before you come to the court?

CARLOS ALCARAZ: Yeah, I meant because it's kind of I forgotted how match day looks like. You know, I was warming up, and I don't remember actually what I used to do, you know, in the warm-up.

So it was kind of get the feeling again. So that's why I was really nervous. And obviously, because I didn't know what's gonna happen on the court, you know, like not having that for granted is kind of difficult feeling. That's why I was really nervous, because kind of I just forgot the competition.

Q. If there was one shot that maybe didn't look like the old Carlos, it might have been your serve, a little bit slower than we're used to. How does that shot feel? Are you planning to kind of ramp back up to 130 again or does this feel comfortable?

CARLOS ALCARAZ: Well, probably the serve is the shot that I was struggling the most. You know, depends on the player I'm going to play against.

You know, there are some players they like to return, you know, when serve is coming over 130 miles, and when you serve a little bit slower than he or they wants to return, they struggle a little bit. So most of that speed is because of him. It was kind of tactics.

But yeah, I mean, who knows. I'm gonna try to serve better. The point is going to try to serve normal, but it's, like, a shot that I just always struggle, I guess. But it will be back, for sure.

Q. We got early the exit of Novak Djokovic here, and he got really big physical struggles. This is not the first time. He was in your part of the draw. Have you seen the match? Are you surprised?

CARLOS ALCARAZ: Well, I saw the fifth set. Well, obviously it was the first time that Novak lose in the first round here in this tournament.

So it's a big surprise, to be honest. You know, it's someone like Novak going out in the tournament, you know, in the first round, it's surprising.

But, you know, here, every Grand Slam is really difficult to get through every round, you know, every player. It's really tough. You have to earn the win since the first ball until the last one.

You know, as you say, he was in my part of the draw but it was in the semis. For me, the semis is too far away, so I just try to be round by round.