Alcaraz beats Safiullin 6-4 6-4 6-4 in singles return at US Open

Carlos Alcaraz defeated Russia's Roman Safiullin 6-4 6-4 6-4 on Monday at Arthur Ashe Stadium in the first round of his US Open title defence, marking his return to singles competition after a 139-day absence following a wrist injury sustained after the Barcelona Open in April.

The seven-time major winner had been sidelined for just over four months and walked onto the court to noisy support as he began his bid to retain the title he won last year. Speaking in his on-court interview after the match, Alcaraz said: "I missed the crowd, the energy, the competition – I missed everything," and added, "I'm just really, really happy that I was able to compete again." He spent the summer watching from the sidelines as Alexander Zverev and Jannik Sinner lifted the French Open and Wimbledon crowns.

Alcaraz played wearing a compression sleeve on his right arm and produced the forehand that is a signature of his game, the whippy stroke accounting for the majority of his 28 winners against Safiullin. Each winner was followed by a clenched fist and cries of "vamos" directed at his team, and the 23-year-old was often smiling between points; at one change of ends he even sang along to a Michael Jackson song. He finished the match with a delicate drop shot in his final service game, lifted his fist to the sky, pointed to his ear and waved his arms to urge more noise from the crowd.

Former Wimbledon champion Pat Cash told BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra that it appeared as if "every little win" was celebrated by Alcaraz. The player himself described his approach to the tournament, saying: "What I really want to do is enjoy every time that I'm going to walk into the court, feeling the energy from the people," and adding, "That's why I enjoyed so much today, and it wasn't a surprise for me, because I came here to enjoy."

There were signs to work on in Alcaraz's game, most notably his serve, which yielded only two aces and five double faults in the match. He landed 68% of his first serves and won 66% of the points behind them, and explained that serving remained an issue: "The serve is the shot I was struggling [with] the most," before saying, "I'm going try to serve better. The point is going to try to serve normal, but it's a shot that I just always struggle [with]. "But it will be back, for sure." He added that he sometimes intentionally used a slower serve to try to catch Safiullin out.

Alcaraz said he had concerns about enduring longer matches after his layoff, admitting: "There were some doubts in the match, I'm not going to lie," and quoting his own thoughts: "I've been thinking about 'am I going to last the best of five, am I going to last playing four sets, five sets?'" He said more matches were needed to regain tournament rhythm: "I need more matches under the belt to get again into the rhythm of the tournament. I'm pretty sure I'm going to get better and better every day." Last year Alcaraz beat Jannik Sinner in the men's singles final at the US Open.

Alcaraz will next face Portugal's 72nd-ranked Jaime Faria in the second round; Safiullin is world number 99. Jannik Sinner is absent from the tournament because of a knee problem, Novak Djokovic lost in the first round to Argentina's Mariano Navone on Sunday, and as the second seed Alcaraz is on the opposite side of the draw to French Open champion and top seed Alexander Zverev, meaning they cannot meet until the final. French 10th seed Arthur Fils lost earlier to Stefanos Tsitsipas, and the only top-10 player Alcaraz can meet before the semi-finals is American Ben Shelton, who could potentially await in the quarter-finals.