Carlos Alcaraz will play the Vienna Open on a wild card, returning to the ATP 500 Erste Bank Open for the first time since 2021. The tournament announced the wild card on 15 October. Its website lists the event at the Wiener Stadthalle as running from 24 October to 1 November, while Field Level Media gave 26 October to 1 November for the indoor event.

The reason is the Six Kings Slam, which was due to be played in Saudi Arabia the following week. IANS reported that it has been postponed to the end of December after attacks on the host city, Riyadh. Tournament director Herwig Straka then contacted Alcaraz's management. "Carlos agreed to come to Vienna without much hesitation," Straka said, according to IANS. He called Alcaraz "one of the most exciting players and personalities on the ATP Tour".

Alcaraz returns to an event he has played once

Alcaraz made his Vienna debut in 2021, at 18, and reached the semi-finals, beating Andy Murray before losing to the eventual champion, Alexander Zverev, IANS and Field Level Media reported. IANS said he chose Vienna over an ATP 250 event. This year he is the second seed behind Zverev and is ranked No. 3.

Field Level Media described his season as up and down because of a wrist injury that kept him out of Wimbledon and the French Open. It said he has still won three titles, at the Australian Open, Doha and Tokyo, and was 33-5 for the season as of 15 October. IANS noted that he lost in the third round of the Shanghai Masters to Zizou Bergs.

Six top-10 players are entered

Zverev is the top seed. The tournament's website also confirms Daniil Medvedev, Flavio Cobolli, Alex de Minaur and Frances Tiafoe, which makes six top-10 players with Alcaraz and Zverev, IANS reported. The same site lists Jakub Menšík, Learner Tien, Tommy Paul, Luciano Darderi, Andrey Rublev, Lorenzo Musetti and Grigor Dimitrov as players to watch.

Jannik Sinner will not be there. Reuters reported that the world number one is out for the rest of 2026 with a persistent knee injury. For where Zverev and Alcaraz stood before the indoor swing, see our Shanghai Masters draw report.

Basel runs the same week, with Djokovic on a wild card

Another ATP 500 event overlaps Vienna. Novak Djokovic received a wild card for the Swiss Indoors in Basel on Friday 16 October, Reuters reported. It will be the 39-year-old's fourth appearance there and his first since 2011. He won the title in 2009 by beating Roger Federer in the final.

Reuters said Djokovic had said after his early exit in Shanghai that he planned to play only the Paris Masters before the ATP Finals, and that he sits 11th in the ATP Live Race to Turin. The Basel field also includes Felix Auger-Aliassime, Ben Shelton and Taylor Fritz, and the event runs from 26 October to 1 November.

The Vienna Open finishes on Sunday 1 November.