Why is world number 1 Carlos Alcaraz not playing in the 2022 Laver Cup?

Why is world number 1 Carlos Alcaraz not playing in the 2022 Laver Cup?

Carlos Alcaraz

World No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz will be one of the notable absentees from the upcoming 2022 Laver Cup. The 3-day event, the 5th edition of the tournament, will be held at the O2 Arena in London and is scheduled to be played from 23rd September to 25th September.

Alcaraz, crowned the US Open champ two weeks prior to the Laver Cup, became the World No. 1 by clinching the Grand Slam title. With the teenager already being one of the rising stars in the sport, the young gun’s absence from the line-up for Team Europe this year was quite shocking.

Also Read: Roger Federer discloses the ‘special’ provisions and rule tweaking done for him in order to participate in the 2022 Laver Cup

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Carlos Alcaraz had to make a tough call on the Laver Cup absence

Carlos Alcaraz
Carlos Alcaraz

Playing in his first full season on the Tour, Alcaraz has been quite busy on Tour playing in the majority of the events week in, week out. As a result, Alcaraz had earlier decided to skip the Laver Cup and the Davis Cup fixtures scheduled after the 2022 US Open where he won his maiden major.

However, Alcaraz eventually decided to turn up for his national team. As a result, the Laver Cup had to be sacrificed by the Spaniard. Alcaraz had spoken about his decision to skip the Laver Cup shortly after winning the US Open in an event organised by one of his sponsors as reported by Bolavip.

“We thought about it and talked about it, but for sporting reasons we are not going to go, as I have been competing for a long time and I had to rest. Playing the Laver Cup, which is a beautiful competition, would have been nice, but we decided it was better to think about the future,” Alcaraz had said.

With Roger Federer set to retire after the 2022 Laver Cup, it’s a missed opportunity for the teenager. Alcaraz had idolised the Swiss maestro growing up and had expressed his sadness as well upon hearing of the 20-time Grand Slam winner’s retirement.

Even Federer reciprocated the teen’s feelings of not getting the chance to play against each other as it would have surely been a brilliant match given Alcaraz has already defeated Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, Federer’s fellow members in the Big-3 club.

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