Carlos Alcaraz’s incredible 2025 tennis season has officially come to an end after he withdrew from this week’s Davis Cup because of a hamstring injury. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the Spaniard admitted he was “heartbroken” to not be representing his home country in the famed final big tournament of the year.
With his withdrawal, Alcaraz’s year is officially over until ATP competition picks back up at the beginning of 2026 in Australia.
The 2025 season has included many ups for Alcaraz, with a few downs (pretty much all coming from losses to his rival and friend Jannik Sinner). He’s also had his fair share of interesting hairdos (cue the bleached blonde and buzz cut). Here’s a reminder of what Alcaraz has accomplished on the tennis court this year.
Two early ATP titles at Rotterdam and Monte-Carlo
Alcaraz had the opportunity to become the youngest men’s player to complete a career grand slam by winning all four major titles at the Australian Open to start the season, but he ended up losing to Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals. While it seemed like an unfortunate start to the year for Alcaraz, he bounced back quickly by capturing his first indoor court title in his career at the ATP 500 tournament in Rotterdam.
Then, in April, Alcaraz captured his 17th ATP title while at Monte-Carlo. The Spaniard made his presence in the clay season known early on, and his dominance continued as the clay season moved forward.
Italian Open title over Jannik Sinner
The first of six matchups this year (all of which were in the finals) between the world No. 1 and 2 took place at the Italian Open in Rome in early May. Alcaraz had missed the previous tournament, the Madrid Open, because of injury, so there wasn’t a lot of hope he’d do well in the rest of the clay season. But, Alcaraz quickly proved the doubters wrong by beating Jannik Sinner 7–6, 6–1 to capture the title.
French Open marathon win over Sinner
In the next tournament he competed in, Alcaraz once again faced Sinner in the finals, this time at the French Open. The Spaniard entered the major tournament as the reigning champion, and he was coming off the Italian Open title, so there definitely was a lot of pressure on him to repeat in Paris.
Alcaraz had three four-set matches leading up to the finals, but that was nothing compared to the five-set thriller in the final. The match lasted five hours and 29 minutes, which broke the record for the longest men's singles final in the history of the French Open. It’s the second-longest major final in men’s tennis Open Era.
Sinner won the first two sets, but Alcaraz crawled back and won the final three 4–6, 6–7, 6–4, 7–6, 7–6 to capture his second French Open title. It was his fifth career major title.
Repeat thriller final between Sinner and Alcaraz at Wimbledon
Alcaraz followed up his French Open win with another title win at Queen’s Club, the tune-up tournament before Wimbledon. All bets were on the Spaniard to win his third consecutive Wimbledon title in London.
But, Sinner prevailed over Alcaraz to break the trend in a four-set thriller on Centre Court. The two young tennis stars were cementing their case for becoming the next big rivalry in the sport.
Alcaraz faces Sinner two more times in America and wins second U.S. Open
Just a few weeks after Wimbledon, Alcaraz faced Sinner once again in a tournament final in Cincinnati. He beat stars like Andrey Rublev and Alexander Zverev to reach the ATP final to compete against Sinner for the fourth time in 2025.
Unfortunately, though, fans didn’t get to experience another exciting matchup between the two stars as Sinner had to retire in the first set because of illness. While it wasn’t necessarily how Alcaraz hoped to win the hard court title, it did kick off an exciting start to the hard court season for him.
The U.S. Open came shortly after the Cincinnati Open, and once again, both Alcaraz and Sinner made their way to the final. Alcaraz became the youngest man in the Open Era to compete in three consecutive major finals with his appearance (Sinner is two years older). Alcaraz had the upper hand again this time, beating the Italian 6–2, 2–6, 6–1, 6–4 to capture his second U.S. Open title (the first was in 2022).
Alcaraz’s U.S. Open win brought him back to being crowned the world No. 1 over Sinner for the first time since 2023.
ATP Finals loss to Sinner
A couple weeks after the U.S. Open, Alcaraz won the Japan Open to bring his total tournament victories for the 2025 season to eight. However, after this tournament, the Spaniard suffered a first-round exit at the Paris Masters thanks to Cameron Norrie.
Earlier this month, Alcaraz headed to Turin, Italy to compete in the ATP Finals, which features the top eight singles players in the world. Alcaraz went 3–0 in group play to land in the semifinals, where he pretty handedly beat Felix Auger Aliassime. Then, as a shock to virtually no one, Alcaraz faced Sinner in the ATP Finals, a title Alcaraz had yet to capture in his career.
The two-set match was extremely close, but Sinner ended up winning 7–6, 7–5 to take the crown. It was in this match in which Alcaraz suffered the edema in the hamstring of his right leg, the injury that causes him to miss the Davis Cup.
What an incredible season for the 22-year-old, who will continue to shine when the 2026 season commences in a couple months.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Reflecting on Carlos Alcaraz’s Impressive 2025 After Injury Ends His Season.
