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Join today<\/a><\/p>\n \n Already a member? Your support helps us to tell the story<\/p>\n From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.<\/p>\n At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.<\/p>\n The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.<\/p>\n Your support makes all the difference.Read more<\/p>\n Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> has said he \u201cmisses\u201d his biggest rival, Jannik Sinner<\/a>, with the Italian currently sidelined with a knee injury.<\/p>\n After splitting the four grand slams of 2025 between them many expected the pair to be equally dominant in 2026. But they have not met in a single major final as both have struggled with injury problems, and have only contested one match – the Monte Carlo<\/a> final, which Sinner won.<\/p>\n Spaniard Alcaraz missed nearly five months of the season with a wrist injury before returning to defend his title at the US Open<\/a>, where he lost in the quarter-finals<\/a>, while Sinner has been out of action since Wimbledon<\/a> with the knee problem. <\/p>\n Alcaraz will play for the first time since his US Open exit at the exhibition Laver Cup<\/a> in London this week, after saying that he would be more conservative in his playing schedule in order to manage his physical health.<\/p>\n He told BBC Sport ahead of the competition: \u201cI have texted him [Sinner] not too much, but a few times when he has been winning everything, mostly at the beginning of the year.<\/p>\n \u201cI miss him, I miss seeing him around, playing against him. He pushes me to be a better player.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople will be waiting for those matches, so I think it’s going to be better [when he\u2019s back].\u201d<\/p>\n Alcaraz, who will play for Team Europe, reflected on reaching the quarter-finals in New York as \u201ca gift\u201d after his lengthy layoff. He lost in a five-set thriller to American world No 4 Ben Shelton<\/a> and despite the defeat beamed as he exited Arthur Ashe Stadium<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI suffered, but I enjoyed and that’s why I smiled when I walked out of the court because I missed that feeling,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n But he joined calls for a change in the scheduling at Flushing Meadows<\/a>, with several players critical of late finishing times. Alcaraz\u2019s clash with Shelton finished at 3.33am local time, the latest-ever finish in US Open history, while other players, notably eventual champion Alexander Zverev<\/a> and Venus Williams<\/a>, endured 2am finishes earlier in the tournament.<\/p>\n Alcaraz said: \u201cI think it’s too much… if that match was played earlier, the court could have been packed.<\/p>\n \u201cI would like to change the schedule a little, with a maximum finish at 11pm or whatever [it] would be better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-781124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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