Carlos Alcaraz Advances to U.S. Open Quarter-Finals
NEW YORK – The questions about the wrist are over. The questions about the title have only just begun.
Carlos Alcaraz stormed into the U.S. Open quarter-finals on Sunday with the kind of performance that turns doubts into noise, dismantling American Tommy Paul 6-4 6-3 6-4 under the lights at Flushing Meadows and stretching his Grand Slam winning streak to 18 matches.
This was supposed to be a test of durability, maybe even vulnerability. It became a statement.
From uncertainty to authority
The 23-year-old arrived in New York talking down his chances, treating the fortnight as a live experiment after a wrist injury had kept him off the tour for nearly five months. He wanted to see how the joint would hold up. He wanted to feel like a competitor again.
Four matches later, the tone has changed.
“After four really good matches, now I feel capable of winning the tournament,” Alcaraz told reporters, while insisting his core approach remains the same: every step on court is “a gift” to be enjoyed.
The shift is not in his words as much as in his tennis. Against Paul, he played like a man who trusts every part of his game again – and every part of his body.
He controlled the baseline rallies, stepped into returns, and turned defence into attack with the familiar, explosive ease that carried him through Wimbledon in 2024, Roland Garros in 2025 and this year’s Australian Open. Paul, backed by a home crowd, never quite found a way to disrupt him for long enough.
A familiar road, a familiar victim
There was another twist to the night: this was the fourth time Alcaraz had beaten Paul at a major, and each of the previous three had come on the way to the title. Wimbledon. Roland Garros. Melbourne. The pattern is hard to ignore.
“It makes you happy when you know those things, but it doesn’t mean anything,” Alcaraz said. “I always say there is a first time for everything, so let’s try to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
The numbers, though, underline how deeply he has embedded himself in the business end of the sport. This is his fifth U.S. Open quarter-final in six appearances, a run of consistency that belongs to players who define eras, not just tournaments.
Seven Grand Slam titles at 23, and yet his language still circles back to gratitude rather than entitlement.
“For me it is still a gift to be able to compete once again and play another quarter-final here at the U.S. Open,” he said. “So I’m going to try to enjoy it and give my best.”
The next hurdle
The defending champion now waits for either Ben Shelton or Stefanos Tsitsipas in the last eight. The match-up will change the mood, but not the scale of the challenge.
Shelton would bring raw American power, a booming serve and a raucous home crowd. Tsitsipas would offer experience, guile and the kind of all-court game that can turn into a chess match.
“Both players are going to be very difficult to play against,” Alcaraz acknowledged.
He no longer sounds like a man wondering if he belongs in the title conversation. He sounds like the man everyone else has to go through.
The wrist held. The level rose. The champion is back in the deep end in New York, and now the real question is whether anyone can stop him finishing what he has started.
