If organizers schedule an important tennis tournament and a slew of the best players in the world miss it, is it still an important tournament?
This is the question the Madrid Open will present to the tennis world over the next 10 days. It’s the same question that the Canadian Open presented last summer, when Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka decided to skip the event in favor of rest.
The Madrid Open and the Canadian Open are two of the six biggest mixed events in tennis outside the Grand Slams, known as ATP Masters 1000s and WTA 1000s. The BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, Calif., the Miami Open, the Italian Open and the Cincinnati Open are the others.
These events award the most prize money and the most rankings points, other than the season-ending ATP and WTA Tour Finals, for which only the top eight singles players of the season qualify. They also receive the most money for sponsorships and media rights.
Licenses for these events are valued at roughly $500 million. Tennis isn’t making more of them at the moment. The Grand Slams aren’t for sale. A 1,000-level license is the most valuable commodity in the sport.
Fans also travel from all manner of time zones and cross plenty of borders to attend — and to see their favorite players. To be at one of these events is supposed to be akin to being at the center of the tennis universe, where it’s all happening, because by rule, during a combined ATP and WTA 1000 event, nothing can happen at the tour level anywhere else. They run 12 days, which is why ATP Challenger Tour and WTA 125 events — the second rungs of professional tennis — see their entry lists get stacked during the second week of the headline show, in case top players lose early.
But over the past 18 to 24 months, the biggest stars in the sport have been getting more outspoken about the relentlessness of the 11-month season, and more choosy about the events that they skip in order to play as much and as effectively as they can for as long as possible. At this year’s Madrid Open, the event has run into a bit of bad luck with one of the brightest lights in the entire sport.
The rest of its laundry list of withdrawals — 23 across the men’s and women’s draws, from and up down the rankings — is connected to its place in the tennis calendar, and its outlier status in the clay-court swing that defines the middle part of the year.
Alcaraz, a two-time winner of the event who last year missed it with a forearm injury, made it two straight misses last week. He withdrew from the Barcelona Open with a wrist injury after winning his first match, then withdrew from the Madrid Open too in short order.
At the time, the move seemed like a mere precaution. Alcaraz wants to be in peak physical form to defend his French Open title in late May. But the story became far more ominous Monday, when Alcaraz showed up to the Laureus Sports awards dinner in Madrid wearing a splint.
“I’m trying to be very patient these days, but we’re doing OK, we’re here, waiting for some tests in the coming days, and from there we’ll see how the injury is and what the next steps will be,” Alcaraz said during a news conference at the Laureus event.
“For now, I’m just trying to stay positive and keep my spirits up, even though these days feel long.”
On the same day Alcaraz pulled out, Djokovic announced he would skip Madrid for the third time in four years. Djokovic, who will turn 39 next month, is a kind of part-time tennis player at the moment, though he remains the world No. 4 because he has proven that when he shows up for big events and feels motivated, there are only two players in the world who can consistently beat him — Alcaraz and Sinner.
“Madrid, unfortunately I won’t be able to compete this year,” Djokovic wrote on social media. He lost in the quarterfinals at Indian Wells, then pulled out of the Miami Open with a right-arm injury. He has not played since.
“I’m continuing my recovery in order to be back soon. Hasta pronto!”
Djokovic’s announcement didn’t come as a shock, even though he is a three-time winner in Madrid and has a home in Spain. Tournament organizers, who were distressed but not panicked by the rising tide of withdrawals, met this announcement with regrets.
“We hope to see you back here as soon as possible so we can enjoy your tennis as we have done so many times in the Caja Mágica,” the tournament wrote on social media.
Other notable withdrawals include Jack Draper, last year’s finalist and a former world No. 4, who is nursing a knee injury, and a slew of Americans: Taylor Fritz, Frances Tiafoe and Sebastian Korda. On the women’s side, two-time major finalist Amanda Anisimova, the in-form Karolína Muchová, Emma Raducanu, Emma Navarro and Barbora Krejčíková are all out, but the top five players in the world are all present and correct.
Feliciano Lopez, the former player who serves as the tournament co-director with two-time Grand Slam champion Garbiñe Muguruza, said in a statement Tuesday that the Madrid Open remains one of the key stops on the clay calendar.
“We deliver an event and experience players value,” Lopez said. “Withdrawals are part of the sport and reflect individual circumstances in that moment. Players want to perform at their best and don’t want to miss Madrid unless they have to.”