Delpo's warning to Alcaraz about his wrist injury

Carlos Alcaraz can find in few people a better warning on how to handle his wrist injury than with Juan Martín del Potro, who suffered a genuine ordeal with both wrists throughout his career and had to undergo surgery four times due to these issues. The Argentine revealed that he spoke with the Spaniard during his recovery and recommended something he himself didn't always know how to do when he was active: not to rush a return too soon.

Alcaraz returned to compete in this US Open after more than four months away from the courts due to an injury to his right wrist. The Murcian had played his last match in April at the Barcelona tournament, and at the beginning of his recovery, he even had to use a splint before progressively starting to hit and regain the necessary sensations to return to the circuit.

It was precisely during that period that he crossed paths with Del Potro in the United States. The Argentine, as he explained in an interview with La Nación, maintains a close relationship with Alcaraz and took advantage of that encounter to convey a recommendation based directly on his own experience.

"Patience with the wrist and don't touch it": Delpo's message to Alcaraz

Del Potro knows better than almost anyone in modern tennis just how much a wrist injury can turn into a long-term problem. The Argentine acknowledged that during his professional career, there were times when he tried to speed up his recoveries out of fear of losing his ranking positions. An attitude that, with the perspective of years and all he later suffered, he does not want Alcaraz to repeat.

“I have a close relationship with him. We met in the United States, he was still with the splint, and my advice was: ‘Patience with the wrist and don't touch it’. I went through it myself, and at that moment, because I didn't want to stop or lose that 4 or 5 in the ranking, I did things that Carlitos shouldn't do today. Also, with such a gap between 1 and 2 and the rest, they can take a few months off and it won't change much in the ranking. So, taking these months off was an intelligent decision,” Delpo remarked in La Nación.

.@delpotrojuan y @carlosalcaraz se encontraron en Estados Unidos, durante el Mundial. Debido a su experiencia en el tema, el tandilense siguió con atención la lesión de muñeca del español y le hizo una recomendación.
La entrevista completa, en @LANACION: https://t.co/roB8zUeFX9 pic.twitter.com/CSKwYqn0UB

— Sebastián Torok (@sebatorok) September 2, 2026

Del Potro and a history of four wrist operations

The medical history of Juan Martín del Potro regarding his wrist problems is long. The 2009 US Open champion had to undergo four wrist surgeries between 2010 and 2015, a circumstance that affected some of the best years of his career.

The first one came in May 2010, just a few months after winning his first Grand Slam and finishing 2009 as the number five in the world. Del Potro was operated on his right wrist due to an issue with the extensor carpi ulnaris tendon. That intervention practically made him miss the entire season, as he only played three matches throughout 2010 and ended the year at position 257 in the rankings having started among the best in the world.

However, the worst was yet to come several years later with his other hand. In March 2014, he went under the knife for the first time on his left wrist, which bore a significant part of the load in his two-handed backhand. That season, he barely competed in four tournaments before stopping again.

He attempted to return in January 2015 in Sydney, but the discomfort returned. On January 20, 2015, he had to undergo a second surgery on that wrist, this time related to a ligament. He tried again later in Miami, but the pain also did not go away completely, and on June 18, 2015, he underwent a third operation on his left wrist, this time for a tendon. All four wrist surgeries in his career were performed at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

That last setback opened another lengthy period without competition. Delpo did not return to the circuit until February 2016 at Delray Beach, after approximately eleven months without participating in an official match and having played only four matches throughout the entire 2015 season. His ranking had dropped to above position 1000.

The injury also forced the Argentine to transform part of his tennis. During his return, he used the one-handed slice backhand much more frequently to reduce the strain on his left wrist before gradually regaining confidence to hit the two-handed backhand again.

"Carlitos shouldn’t do today the things I did"

That is why Delpo believes Alcaraz made the right decision to stay out of competition for four months. The Argentine admits that he himself made the mistake of focusing too much on the ranking when dealing with his early injuries and that, in trying to maintain a position among the top five, he made choices that he would have managed differently now.

Alcaraz's current situation also offers a different margin. Juan Martín Del Potro understands that the gap between the great dominators of the circuit and many of their pursuers allows the Spaniard to completely prioritize his health without obsessing over a few weeks or even months of competition.

Del Potro managed to return time and again until he made it back to the elite, won the Davis Cup with Argentina, claimed the silver medal at Rio Olympics, and reached number three in the world in 2018, but he knows perfectly the price that can come with challenging the timelines that a wrist sets.

Alcaraz has been very prudent, and both he and his team have followed a correct and safe path. A decision that, after four operations and several setbacks, Del Potro defines as intelligent. Few tennis players can speak on this matter with more authority than he can.

This is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, El aviso de Delpo a Alcaraz sobre su lesión de muñeca