Alcaraz IN, Sinner OUT for US Open... Plus, The Immortals of US Tennis | Monday Match Analysis

**Gill Gross** (0:01)
Welcome, everyone, to this special edition of Monday Match Analysis brought to you by Fitnexa. On today's show, we're talking to Steve Flink about his new book, The Immortals of American Tennis. Lots of history talk coming your way, but first, it's the very opposite of history. Current events, because it was a very newsy week in the tennis world, from the Nick Kyrgios suspension to the release of Novak Djokovic's documentary, to the US. Open releasing its 2026 prize money figures, along with some other bells and whistles. And of course, US. Open entry list news, injury news. Let's start there. Carlos Alcaraz is in, Jannik Sinner is out. They flip-flopped. Let me start with Carlos.
Not surprised.
Almost surprised because I understand the conventional wisdom. You're not going to come back and play a major first event back when you haven't played a match in four months. No way you're starting with best of five. In fact, when Holger Runa announced his withdrawal from the US. Open, and it was actually Runa and Carlos playing practice sets in Spain in the week leading up to, well, this week, I should say. This week, they'd been playing practice sets. So Holger's clearly in a pretty good space. He actually put forth the reasoning, I don't want to come back in best of five, which is totally reasonable and understandable from his perspective. But from Carlos's perspective, and I did say this, it's not hindsight 2020 I did say this after Wimbledon actually talking to Steve Flink about Carlos's US. Open prospects. You do have to be careful to not apply regular player logic to a very irregular player. Do not apply logic to a player who defies logic regularly. That's what the greats do.
Roger Federer won the Australian Open coming off of a knee surgery. Rafael Nadal won Roland Garros when he was on crutches the week before. Serena Williams won the Australian Open when pregnant. The greats don't follow the rules. They break them.
Conventional wisdom doesn't work. Logic doesn't always work.
Novak Djokovic hadn't won a title in a year. He won the gold medal, right? It doesn't necessarily always work that way.
That's where I'm out with Alcaraz. I'm not making a prediction here, but at the end of the day, I'm not that surprised he's playing and I think he can win it. I think he can win it.
Not a prediction, but don't count him out. Don't count the greats out, in general. But Jannik Sinner not playing, big disappointment. And obviously I said that they have flip-flopped. Carlos has missed the last two slams. Jannik will miss the next one.
There's not much insight I can provide on this topic because this happened completely out of the public eye. Of course, the last match that Sinner played was the Wimbledon final.
Beating Alexander is Varev. Something popped up in training, obviously, and he's not going to be able to play. So kind of flying blind on this one. Not much more I can add to it. Obviously didn't see it coming, but it really does put an exclamation mark on a year to me that has been defined by injuries on the ATP Tour. The worst I have ever seen it.
I don't think it's ever been worse. Not that I can remember. And you can start at the top with Sincaraz, who by the way, will not play at a major this year. We will not see Sinner versus Alcaraz in Best of Five after we saw it three times last year. And at the Australian Open, you can't blame injury, but at the next three, of course, you can. So you start there, then you go down the list, and we know about Jack Draper and Lorenzo Musetti, who are both players that I predicted to finish in the top five at the end of the year. They have been completely out of that conversation as a result of their health problems.
And Holger Runna, who I've already mentioned, hasn't hit a ball this year. And Arthur Fees has missed two slams. I know he's definitely had his moments this year. The whole season hasn't been a wash, but it's certainly been disrupted. And those are the big ones. Okay, I'm not going to... I can keep going, obviously. But I'm not going down the rankings here and cherry picking, right? I'm not saying... You know, I'm not really digging overly deep to try to make a case that the tour, the storylines, the quality of matches, of course, the quality of tournaments, have taken a huge hit because of injuries this year. A much bigger hit than I can ever remember. Now everybody always wants to talk about why, right? I always want to blame something. And I will reiterate that I feel a increase in injury rate is inevitable considering harder hitting, lighter rackets and more full polyester string beds, especially arm injuries. Doesn't necessarily explain a knee.