World No.1 Carlos Alcaraz has withdrawn from the Australian Open after suffering another injury blow.
Alcaraz, 19, had his 2022 curtailed by an abdominal tear, but the Spaniard revealed on his social media channels he has now sustained an injury to “the semimembranosus muscle in my right leg”.
“I’d worked so hard to get to my best level for Australia but unfortunately I won’t be able to play the Care A2+ Kooyong or the Australian Open,” he wrote.
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“It’s tough, but I have to be optimistic, recover and look forward.”
Alcaraz last played a professional match in October, when he was forced to withdraw from the quarter-finals of the Paris Masters with an abdominal tear.
The injury ended his season and stopped him from competing in the ATP Finals, which would’ve capped an extraordinary season for the teenage sensation.
Alcaraz’ breakthrough win at the 2022 US Open made him the youngest men’s US Open champion since Pete Sampras in 1990 and the youngest world No.1 in the history of the ATP rankings, breaking Lleyton Hewitt’s record.
Despite his ranking and success at the US Open, Alcaraz still has an enormous amount of scope to bolster his hold on the top position.
He fell in the third round of last year’s Australian Open, the quarter-finals at the French Open and the fourth round of Wimbledon.
It marks the second consecutive year the Australian Open will not feature the men’s world No.1, with Novak Djokovic deported from the country in 2022.
