THE NADAL SHIELD: RAFA’S BLUNT MESSAGE TO FANS: "STOP EXPECTING CARLOS ALCARAZ TO WIN EVERY MATCH"
Carlos Alcaraz faces criticism after a Miami Open exit, but Rafael Nadal defends the World No. 1 and his 7 Slams.
Carlos Alcaraz kicked off his 2026 season in style. He finally completed the career Grand Slam at the Australian Open, then rolled through Doha to pick up another trophy. No one could touch him for his first 16 matches of the year. That streak finally snapped in the Indian Wells semi-finals when Daniil Medvedev took him down.
After that, things got a little rocky. Alcaraz, still holding onto the world No. 1 ranking, got knocked out early in Miami. He won just one match there before Sebastian Korda sent him packing. It was déjà vu; last year, he lost his very first match at the Hard Rock Stadium to David Goffin.
So after that hot streak, Alcaraz has dropped two of his last three matches. The Miami loss to Korda stung, especially after Alcaraz clawed back in the second set to force a decider. But Korda, ranked 36th in the world, kept his cool and closed it out in three sets: 6-3, 5-7, 6-4. Alcaraz never really looked settled and kept chatting nervously with his team the whole time.
Still, don’t expect Rafael Nadal to hit the panic button. The Spanish legend, 22-time Grand Slam champ, now retired, shrugged off concerns about Alcaraz’s Miami slip-up. Asked point-blank about the third-round exit, Nadal didn’t mince words.
“He just won the Australian Open, has seven Slams, is No. 1 in the world... So what? Do we expect him to win every single match all year? That’s not how it works. There’s your answer,” Nadal told reporters after picking up an honorary doctorate in Madrid.
Nadal knows that world No. 1 pressure better than anyone. And at 39, he’s urging everyone to ease up.
“Are we really bothered by two losses? That makes no sense. We can’t keep asking more and more from him,” Nadal said. “We should just congratulate Carlos and thank him for what he’s doing.”
He went on: “He’s pulling off things for Spanish sport that, 25 or 30 years back, none of us could have dreamed of. Maybe we’re getting spoiled, but I’ve never lost sight of how hard what Carlos and any top athlete do really is.”
Alcaraz’s early exit did open the door for another Spanish story in Miami. Martin Landaluce, ranked 151 and a Rafa Nadal Academy graduate, qualified for his first ATP quarter-final. He upset two top-20 seeds, Luciano Darderi and Karen Khachanov, then took out Korda, the same guy who’d toppled Alcaraz.
Landaluce credits Nadal and the academy for his breakthrough. “I’ve been training at Rafa’s place since I was 14. I definitely picked up some of his mentality, that Spanish fighting spirit, most of all. Watching him, hitting with him, getting advice, and just seeing how hard he trains day after day has really left a mark on me,” he said.
MADRID OPEN HIT BY 17 MAJOR WITHDRAWALS, INCLUDING WORLD STARS CARLOS ALCARAZ AND DJOKOVIC
The Madrid Open field is decimated! With 17 players out, including Alcaraz, Djokovic, and Raducanu, see the full list.
The list of players dropping out of the 2026 Madrid Open has jumped to 17, covering both the women’s and men’s singles draws.
By Saturday, 13 players had already withdrawn. The biggest names? Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic.
Since then, four more women have pulled out, including Grand Slam champs Barbora Krejcikova and Emma Raducanu.
Madrid hosts the first clay-court WTA 1000 of the season and the second ATP Masters 1000 on clay after Monte Carlo. Both tournaments in Madrid have 96-player draws and 32 seeds, who get a first-round bye.
The women’s main draw kicks off Tuesday, and the men’s starts Wednesday. The women’s final is set for Saturday, May 2, and the men wrap things up on Sunday, May 3. Aryna Sabalenka and Casper Ruud won the singles titles last year.
Here’s a closer look at the withdrawals:
ATP Madrid Open withdrawals
Alcaraz, ranked No. 2 in the world and a two-time Madrid champion, misses out again after hurting his wrist in Barcelona. He sat out Madrid last year as well.
World No. 4 Djokovic, who’s won Madrid three times, is out as he recovers from a shoulder injury. The Serb has played only two events this year.
Taylor Fritz, yet to play a clay match in 2026, is the other ATP top-10 player stepping aside.
Here’s the full ATP withdrawal list:
Carlos Alcaraz (world No. 2) – replaced by Sebastian Ofner
Novak Djokovic (world No. 4) – replaced by Adam Walton
Taylor Fritz (world No. 8) – replaced by Roberto Bautista Agut
Holger Rune (world No. 27) – replaced by Francisco Comesana
Sebastian Korda (world No. 43) – replaced by Alexander Shevchenko
Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard (world No. 53) – replaced by Alexandre Muller
Arthur Cazaux (world No. 71) – replaced by Alexander Blockx
Kamil Majchrzak (world No. 73) – replaced by Thiago Agustin Tirante
WTA Madrid Open withdrawals
Reports say Emma Raducanu, the 2021 US Open champ and absent since Indian Wells, is out. Barbora Krejcikova, another major winner, is withdrawing too, alongside Sara Bejlek and McCartney Kessler.
Here’s the current WTA withdrawal list:
Emma Navarro (world No. 27) – replaced by Ashlyn Krueger
Emma Raducanu (world No. 29) – replaced by Ajla Tomljanovic
Maya Joint (world No. 30) – replaced by Moyuka Uchijima.
Sara Bejlek (world No. 34) – replaced by Viktorija Golubic
McCartney Kessler (world No. 48) – replaced by Kamilla Rakhimova
Barbora Krejcikova (world No. 52) – replaced by Zeynep Sonmez
Sonay Kartal (world No. 55) – replaced by Petra Marcinko
Varvara Gracheva (world No. 59) – replaced by Eva Lys
Veronika Kudermetova (world No. 62) – replaced by Taylor Townsend
EMMA RADUCANU DROPS TO NO. 29 AS VIRAL ILLNESS DELAYS COMPETITIVE TENNIS RETURN
Emma Raducanu falls to World No. 29. Discover her Madrid Open comeback plans and the viral illness that halted her WTA season.
Emma Raducanu has slipped further down the WTA rankings as she focuses on regaining her full fitness. At 23, she has faced several interruptions since her breakthrough win at the US Open in 2021.
While Raducanu stands out as a major title winner, having claimed her US Open victory after navigating the qualifiers, she reached her highest ranking at No. 10 less than a year later. Since then, she hasn’t added another singles title to her name, working instead on finding steadiness in her game. She’s aiming to kick off her clay-court season at the Madrid Open later this month. Yet, her ranking has dipped ahead of that event, partly because she withdrew from both the Miami Open and the Linz Open.
Currently listed at No. 29, down one spot from 28, Raducanu hasn’t gained ranking points recently due to recovering from a viral illness. Her last appearance was at Indian Wells in March, where she exited in the third round against Amanda Anisimova.
Her decision to miss Miami and Linz came after falling ill. Reports from BBC Sport noted that she started feeling unwell in February but kept competing until she pulled out of the Austrian tournament.
As Raducanu prepares for a potential comeback at Madrid, which kicks off on April 21, Romania’s Sorana Cirstea has moved ahead in the rankings. At 36, Cirstea climbed three places to 26th after reaching the quarter-finals in Linz.
Interestingly, Raducanu and Cirstea met earlier this year at the Transylvania Open final in Cirstea’s home country. Cirstea won decisively, 6-0, 6-2, though Raducanu admitted she wasn’t at her best even before the match started.
“In Cluj, I picked up a virus at the start of the tournament,” Raducanu shared with the Guardian in February. “I was dealing with that and its after-effects... which lasted for three weeks. I’ve been trying to shake it off. The Middle East trip was really tough for me.”
It seems Raducanu is keen to recover fully before stepping back onto the court. Looking back, Aryna Sabalenka took the 2023 Madrid Open title with a 6-3, 7-6 win over Coco Gauff in the final.
