Jannik Sinner Withdraws From the US Open, the First Grand Slam He Has Missed Through Injury

Verified key facts

• Jannik Sinner announced on Friday 21 August that he will not play the US Open, whose main draw begins on 30 August, La Gazzetta dello Sport reported
• In his statement the world number one said he needs more time to recover from a problem in his right knee, as carried by Ubitennis
• It is the first Grand Slam tournament Sinner has missed through injury, according to Ubitennis and Sky Sport Italia
• Sinner had already withdrawn from the Cincinnati Open earlier in August with the same knee complaint, and pulled out of the National Bank Open in Montreal before that, per Sky Sports
• La Gazzetta dello Sport reported that he underwent shockwave therapy at the JMedical clinic in Turin before returning to train in Monte Carlo
• Carlos Alcaraz confirmed his own return at Flushing Meadows the previous day after more than four months out with a wrist injury, Il Messaggero reported
• Sinner finished runner-up to Alcaraz at the 2025 US Open and forfeits the 1,300 ranking points that result earned him, according to Tennis365

A decision taken in Monte Carlo, announced from Europe

Jannik Sinner will not play the US Open. The world number one confirmed on Friday that a problem in his right knee has not healed quickly enough for him to compete in New York, ending three weeks of speculation that had run through the Italian sports press almost hourly. The main draw at Flushing Meadows begins on 30 August.

The announcement followed a week of training sessions at his base in Monte Carlo designed to answer exactly one question: whether the joint could take the load of five-set tennis on hard courts over a fortnight. According to Ubitennis, those sessions told him it could not, and he took the decision rather than travel to the United States on the hope that it would settle in time.

It is, as both Ubitennis and Sky Sport Italia noted, the first Grand Slam tournament Sinner has missed because of injury. He has withdrawn from tour-level events before, but he has never before reached the eve of a major and had to say he was not fit enough to start it.

The knee that never settled after Wimbledon

The problem is not new. Sinner pulled out of the National Bank Open in Montreal, and then withdrew from the Cincinnati Open earlier this month, in both cases citing the right knee. His Cincinnati statement, reported by Sky Sports and ESPN, was unusually direct for a player who tends to keep medical detail private: his knee had been bothering him, he had been working hard with his medical team, and he had to accept that he was not ready to compete.

That left the reigning Wimbledon champion without a single hard-court match in the run-up to the last major of the year, a preparation gap that would have been demanding even for a fully fit player. La Gazzetta dello Sport reported that he spent part of the intervening period at the JMedical clinic in Turin undergoing shockwave therapy on the inflamed area, then took a few days in Monte Carlo around his twenty-fifth birthday before resuming work.

Through all of it his camp said nothing definitive, which is why the Italian coverage swung between optimism and alarm on consecutive days. Corriere dello Sport wrote on 19 August that the clock was running out and that there were too many doubts about the knee. Two days later the doubts were resolved in the least welcome way.

Bertolucci's post and the hours before confirmation

The news broke sideways, as it often does in Italian tennis. Paolo Bertolucci, the former Davis Cup player turned commentator, posted a short message on X on Friday morning to the effect that Sinner was out of New York. Il Tennis Italiano carried it immediately, flagging that official confirmation had not yet arrived.

It arrived within hours. Sportmediaset led with the line that has since travelled furthest, a plain admission of sadness paired with a plain statement of fact: he needs more time to recover. La Gazzetta dello Sport carried a fuller version in which Sinner described himself as sad and disappointed.

Sinner and his mixed doubles partner Katerina Siniakova had already come out of the US Open mixed doubles event, as Gulf News reported earlier in the month. At the time that looked like a precaution to protect the singles campaign. In hindsight it was the first piece of the same decision.

What the statement actually commits him to

The wording matters, because it rules some things in and other things out. Sinner did not describe surgery, and he did not put a date on a return to competition beyond a general intention. What he said, in the version carried by Ubitennis, is that he needs more time to recover from the right knee issue.

His stated plan is to stay in Europe and continue rehabilitation with his medical staff and training team rather than travel. That is a meaningful choice in itself: players who intend to be back within days usually stay near the tournament. Staying home signals a recovery measured in weeks. Neither the ATP nor his team has published a diagnosis more specific than an inflamed right knee.

Alcaraz comes back as Sinner drops out

The symmetry is hard to miss. One day before Sinner's withdrawal, Carlos Alcaraz confirmed that he will play the US Open, returning after more than four months out with a wrist injury, as Il Messaggero reported. Ubitennis had spent Thursday framing the tournament around the question of whether both men would be there.

Alcaraz has not competed since April. A player coming back from that long a lay-off at a major is a considerable unknown in his own right, but he is the defending champion in New York, having beaten Sinner in the 2025 final and reclaimed the number one ranking in the process.

The two of them have between them defined the men's game for two seasons. The 2026 US Open will now be the first major in that stretch in which only one of them starts, and the one who starts arrives with barely any match play behind him.

The ranking arithmetic Sinner forfeits

A withdrawal at a major is expensive in ranking terms because the points from last year's edition come off the total regardless. Sinner reached the 2025 US Open final, and Tennis365 puts the runner-up haul he now surrenders at 1,300 points. Alcaraz, as defending champion, has considerably more exposed.

That does not translate into an immediate change at the top of the rankings on its own, and the eventual arithmetic depends on how far Alcaraz and the rest of the field go over the fortnight. What it does mean is that the lead Sinner has built at number one will narrow without him hitting a ball, and that the North American hard-court swing on which he has built much of his recent record has been lost entirely: Montreal, Cincinnati and New York in succession.

Beijing and Shanghai are the comeback he has named

Sinner's stated target is the Asian swing, with the tournaments in Beijing and Shanghai identified by Ubitennis as the events he wants to be ready for. That gives his medical team roughly five weeks of runway from the withdrawal, and it puts his return on outdoor hard courts rather than on the indoor surfaces that close the season.

Whether that timetable holds will depend on how the knee responds to a longer block of rehabilitation than it has had at any point this summer. The pattern since Montreal has been a short recovery, a return to training, and a fresh setback, and the point of skipping a major is to break that cycle rather than repeat it at a smaller event.

Until then the immediate consequence is simple. The men's draw at Flushing Meadows will be made without the world number one in it, and the tournament that has produced the defining match of the last two seasons will have to produce something else.

Sources

• La Gazzetta dello Sport - Sinner si arrende, il n. 1 al mondo non giochera gli Us Open
• Ubitennis - Forfait di Sinner allo US Open: Ho bisogno di tempo per recuperare dal problema al ginocchio
• Il Tennis Italiano - Paolo Bertolucci annuncia: Sinner non sara agli Us Open
• Sportmediaset - Tennis, niente Us Open per Sinner: Triste ma ho bisogno di piu tempo per recuperare
• Sky Sport Italia - Jannik Sinner salta gli US Open per un problema al ginocchio destro
• Il Messaggero - Alcaraz: Torno agli Us Open. Il campione rientra dopo oltre 4 mesi
• Sky Sports - Jannik Sinner withdraws from Cincinnati Open as knee injury raises US Open fitness concerns
• Tennis365 - ATP Rankings: How many points will Sinner, Alcaraz and others drop during the North American swing