World No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz suffered a potentially serious ankle injury early in his tournament opener in Rio de Janeiro against home team Thiago Monteiro.
Already in the second play, Monteiro countered Alcaraz and when he tried to change direction, the Spaniard's right ankle was bent. He was clearly in pain but was bandaged up by the physio and tried to continue the fight. A few points later, the two-time Grand Slam champion folded.
"Tomorrow we'll get the ankle examined and see if it's something serious. It felt bad, that was my first impression. It hurt as soon as I fell. I played a few more points, but the feeling didn't get better. I realized that if I kept playing, the injury could get worse," Alcaraz, who won the Rio 2022 title, said after the match.
In this way, Alcaraz is in danger of losing the second place in the world ranking to the Italian Yannick Siner. The Spaniard currently holds a 535-point lead over the Australian Open champion but will soon have to defend 1,000 points from his Indian Wells title last year. /BGNES
